


Blake's 7 Revisted (meta)

by HermitLibrary_Archivist



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-28
Updated: 2008-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4741142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermitLibrary_Archivist/pseuds/HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>by Frances Teagle</p><p>An appraisal of a science fiction series. Third Edition, July 1993 - Copyright Frances Teagle</p><p>Blake Revisited Part 1 The Story, Sources, The Drama, The Federation and it's society. By Frances Teagle<br/>Blake Revisited Part 2 The Characters (regular cast). By Frances Teagle<br/>Blake Revisited Part 3 The Characters (notable transients). By Frances Teagle<br/>Blake Revisited Part 4 The Spacecraft, The Computers, The Production, Final Remarks. By Frances Teagle</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Judith and Aralias, the archivists: This story was originally archived at [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hermit_Library), which was closed due to maintenance costs and lack of time. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2015. We posted announcements about the move and emailed authors as we imported, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hermitlibrary/profile). 
> 
> This work has been backdated to 26th of May 2008, which is the last date the Hermit.org archive was updated, not the date this fic was written. In some cases, fics can be dated more precisely by searching for the zine they were originally published in on [Fanlore](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Main_Page).

#### THE STORY

**Scene - The Federated Worlds - a totalitarian state of the future.**

Roj Blake is persuaded to attend an illegal political meeting outside city bounds. He meets political activists who claim that he once worked with them in the resistance movement. He cannot recall these events because he was captured and brainwashed by the authorities. The meeting place is raided by Federation troops and the dissidents are shot. Blake, who left the gathering early, is picked up as he slips back into the city. Afraid to execute a once well-known leader, the authorities frame him on a child-molestation charge and condemn him to transportation to their `Devil's Island', Cygnus Alpha.

In prison, he meets Jenna Stannis, a smuggler and pilot, and Vila Restal, a compulsive thief. Later, on board the prison ship London, they encounter Kerr Avon, convicted of attempting to defraud the banking system of five million credits, and Olag Gan, sentenced for murder.

Halfway to Cygnus Alpha, the prison ship  _London_  happens across two mysterious fleets engaged in battle. While the crew are taking avoiding action, Blake and the others attempt to seize the ship but are foiled by the first officer. Soon after, the  _London_  crew discover a huge spaceship of unknown origin abandoned and drifting but undamaged. Two men are killed mysteriously when they attempt to salvage this rich prize. The first officer orders Blake, Jenna and Avon aboard to investigate. Blake overcomes the defence system operated by Zen, the ship's master computer, and Jenna pilots the prize in a successful breakaway. Christening their ship  _"Liberator"_ , they trail  _London_  to Cygnus Alpha and rescue Vila and Gan. Shortly afterwards, on their first anti-Federation mission, they are joined by Cally, a telepathic resistance fighter from Auron. The band begins a guerilla campaign against the Federation and its Supreme Commander, Servalan.

 

* * *

#### SOURCES

The story belongs to the mainstream of popular mythology, the outlaw band opposing an oppressive regime. One can easily compare it to the Sherwood Forest archetype --- Robin (Blake), Marian (Jenna), Little John (Gan) and Will Scarlet (Vila) hunted by the Sheriff of Nottingham/Prince John (Servalan) and Guy of Gisbourne (Travis). Various traitors and bounty hunters (Professor Kayn, Tarvin, Largo) attempt to entrap them for the price on their heads, and the forest contains other unaligned but unfriendly forces ( **The Web, Sarcophagus, The Dawn of the Gods, Ultraworld, Stardrive** ), besides allies, innocent bystanders and victims of injustice that the band encounter on their roamings.

Blake's chief purpose is to overthrow the Federation government, rescue the distressed ( **Mission to Destiny, Project Avalon** ), frustrate the schemes of the corrupt authorities ( **Weapon, Bounty** ) and seek allies in the struggle ( **Bounty, Shadow, Volcano** ). This aim is seldom lost sight of for long and it gives the drama a cohesion generally lacking in other science fiction series, with their five-year exploration missions, etc. Since the crew are not picked military personnel but mostly escaped convicts who landed in this predicament as a direct result of their own activities, much can be made of the interplay of their personalities. Their past history, particularly Avon's, can be elaborated upon and examined for clues to their behaviour and motivation. They are not subject to military discipline, they do not owe Blake obedience, he needs their skills (pilot, safebreaker, electronics genius) and he must come to terms with their strongly individual characteristics, including varying degrees of cynicism. The group, in fact, resembles the loosely associated buccaneer crews of the 17th and 18th century Caribbean.

There is a strong vein of piracy running through the whole series. The salvaged  _Liberator_  contains a strongroom full of treasure whose origin and purpose is never explained; the  _Ortega_  is crippled by one of its crew, so that confederates can overtake and plunder it; another pirate captures _Liberator,_  intending to sell it to the authorities; Tarrant proposes to hijack a Federation shipment of precious Kairopan crystals; the ship is lured onto the rocks ( **The Web** ) by siren songs; and ever in the background, the Navy, scouring the seven seas for them. So the story can be seen as a sophisticated and sometimes rather sombre amalgam of the two classic swashbuckling Hollywood dramas,  **Robin Hood**  and  **Captain Blood** , light-hearted cinematic evocations which were in their turn based on archetypal folk heroes, with a possible real-life origin. These archetypes, filtered through our own recent experiences of oppression, resistance and political turmoil, seasoned with cynicism and pessimism, emerge as the heroes of today.

A reminder of Fritz Lang's  **Metropolis**  occurs when Travis (Stephen Greif) with his black-gloved artificial hand confronts the robot double of the resistance leader Avalon (Julia Vidler) which he has had created to spread a plague virus among the crew of the Liberator, just as Rotwang (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) with his black-gloved artificial hand faces the robot double of the worker's leader Maria (Brigitte Helm) which he has created to spread dissension among the inhabitants of the labourer's underworld. Both Maria and Avalon conduct their meetings in caves and both are seen strapped to a stretcher while being electronically scanned for the data to program their mechanical alter egos.

 

* * *

#### THE DRAMA

The main theme is taken very seriously. Whereas its progenitor, Dr Who, was liberally salted with humour and the eponymous hero became steadily more whimsical, the main characters of Blake are much more in earnest. This is not to say humour is lacking, far from it, but it is of a mordant variety, galgenhumor rather than giggles.

The script often dwells on the tensions between personalities and the heavy toll taken by stress in their fugitive lifestyle. This exhaustion takes the familiar form of misjudgements, psychosomatic ailments and short tempers, plus the temptation to overindulge in stimulants and sedatives ( **Horizon** ). Vila is particularly prone to complain of headaches and ask for painkillers, but all the crew have their problems. Cally is the usual dispenser of medical aid, including the yoga exercises featured at the beginning of the  **Voice from the Past**  episode.

The opposition are not immune either. Travis's existence becomes an increasing torment to him and he more than once tries to taunt Blake into giving him his quietus. Aware of this angst, Blake refuses and restrains his crew ( _"That would be a mercy. Are you feeling particularly merciful?"_ ). Servalan appears to cope the best, probably because she controls the most power. After every check, she tries another way, ever hopeful of swatting the gadfly or trapping it in treacle. However, her subordinates have a high casualty rate, shortcomings are seldom forgiven.

Light relief is afforded mainly by the dialogue, banter and bickering being common to both sides. The insubordination of crew members in search of entertainment, such as Vila's illicit expedition to Space City and resulting monumental hangover, or Avon's raid on the Big Wheel casino acts as a safety valve and morale raiser.

The war is conducted intelligently and consistently. Blake embarks on a campaign of maximum disruption for minimum effort. He strikes at a communication centre ( **Time Squad** ), the crew steal an advanced decoding device ( **Seek, Locate, Destroy** ) and gain information to prevent a Federation takeover on the independent planet, Lindor ( **Bounty** ). A chance encounter leads them to Orac ( **Deliverance** ). Blake evolves the strategy of destroying the Federation's central control complex, thus bringing about their downfall in the ensuing chaos. After a misdirected strike, Orac is deployed to track the personnel who moved it to its concealed location. These individuals are traced and questioned ( **Countdown, Gambit, The Keeper** ).

Inevitably, after the destruction of Star One in the Galactic War, the Federation regroups and begins a campaign of reconquest, starting the cycle again with Avon leading the crew after the loss of Blake and Jenna. As Servalan seeks to rebuild her destabilised empire, she redoubles her efforts to seize the  _Liberator._  It is her ambition to build a fleet that would make her invincible (others have the same idea - **Moloch** ). She attempts to foment war between two neutral confederacies ( **Death-Watch** ) in order to step in as their `saviour' after they have inflicted enough damage on each other. She survives one attempt to unseat her ( **Rumours of Death** ) thanks to Avon's obsessive quest for private vengeance. Her final plot to capture  _Liberator_  is magnificently labyrinthine and would have succeeded but for the unfortunate effects of the enzyme cloud on its hull ( **Terminal** ). This time she is away from base too long and she loses the presidency.

Having lost the  _Liberator,_  Avon acquires  _Scorpio_  and Dorian's secret base on Xenon. From here, he conducts a campaign to prevent the Federation from gaining any technical advantage ( **Star Drive, Animals, Games** ). The unsinkable Servalan has taken on the identity of `Commissioner Sleer' and is using a drug, Pylene-50, to pacify and reconquer planets that have seceded from the Federation, whose presidency she is confident of regaining. Avon realises he must find helpers to check this expansion and strives to build an alliance between independent states. The need to find a figurehead leads him back to Blake.

 

* * *

#### THE FEDERATION AND IT'S SOCIETY

The Federation society depicted in Blake's 7 is far from comfortable and is often described as a dystopia. This pessimistic forecast belongs to a 20th century British trend beginning with H G Wells and typified by Orwell's  **1984**  (written in 1948) and Huxley's  **Brave New World** , forward projections of Stalinism and the perverted science of two world wars. The former illustrates the naked violence of the `Big Brother' state and the latter depicts a drugged and conditioned population denied the right to grow up by its masters. Both elements are to be found in the Federation.

With the possible exception of Gan, the main protagonists have never been married and very few couples appear (Varon and Maja in  **The Way Back** , Sula and Chesku in  **Rumours of Death** ). Family life is rarely seen apart from Hal Mellanby and his daughters ( **Aftermath** ) and no small children appear at all. Imperfectly controlled genetic experimentation is rife ( **The Web, Moloch, Animals** ), cloning is practised under the strict supervision of the Clonemasters ( **Weapon** ) and Auron has gone over to artificial bio-replication in its development of telepathy.

Federation mores cover the complete range from the iron integrity of Fleet Warden General Samor ( **Trial** ) to the irresponsible duplicity of the irrepressible Belkov ( **Games** ). Many of its officers and agents are honestly devoted to their duty, like Lurena at the Star One control centre. Many others serve conscientiously, but with a certain wry scepticism (Major Grenlee, Dr. Bellfriar). Ambitious rats like Ginka ( **Children of Auron** ) and Leitz ( **Traitor** ) make disastrous attempts to manipulate Servalan in their climb to power.

Brutality is widespread. Travis uses it routinely, but with little enjoyment, others take more pleasure in it. _"Women, food and inflicting pain, in no particular order,"_  remarks Servalan to Section Leader Grose on Sardos, _"The Fifth Legion always encouraged such virtues,"_  he counters,  _"they sharpen the spurs of duty."_

Federation citizens are strictly graded and controlled with suppressants in the food and atmosphere to induce docility. At least three penal colonies exist for the misfits (Cygnus Alpha, Exbar and Calchos), slavery, mutoid modification and memory erasure are also employed and political prisoners are routinely tortured and subjected to brain-washing techniques. Informers, undercover agents, death squads and interrogators prowl the streets. Even the powerful Terra Nostra criminal organisation is secretly controlled by the President of the Federation.

Independent societies range from fairly normal ( **Mission to Destiny** ) to free-for-all gambling establishments like Space City and Freedom City. Some have degenerated into primitive tribalism ( **Deliverance, The Keeper, Power** ). The more sophisticated Teal and Vandor confederations have developed elaborately ritualised combats, vicariously shared by the whole population, to settle their border disputes. The builders of the  _Liberator_  are as bleakly authoritarian as the worst of the Federation. The inhabitants of Sardos are endeavouring to hide behind a shield generated by their matter transformers, cutting themselves off from the rest of the galaxy.

Most aliens have evil designs, from the unseen presence in  **Shadow**  telepathically terrorising Cally, to the full-scale Andromedan invasion ( **Star One** ). The Thaarn is attempting to control gravity ( **Dawn of the Gods** ), the Intruder merely to re-incarnate herself and regain her paradise ( **Sarcophagus** ). The Ultras never explain what they intend to do with all the data they are collecting, but conquest and domination are probably on their agenda as well.

The Federation does seem to be an equal opportunities society on the whole, but feminine values and virtues are seldom represented (except by Cally). The female of the species gets a more active part than usual in science fiction: Jenna, reckless freetrader; Cally, Avalon and Kasabi, resistance fighters; Dayna, weaponry designer; Soolin and Kerrill, gunfighters; the assassins, Carla and Piri; the bounty hunters, Zee and Bar; Sara, ready to kill repeatedly for money; Tara, disposing of her brothers on her way to the throne; the devouring Intruder, battening on the crew; Anna Grant, who has brought treachery to a fine art; and Servalan, every man's nightmare of the Terrible Mother, fascinating and fearsome by turns. Ladies are scarce (Governor Le Grand, Rashel), romantics even scarcer (Meegat). The occasional warm-hearted, motherly woman surfaces (Chenie the barmaid, Nina, wife of Gun-Sar). Some female androids appear, such as the Altas and the robot Avalon. In  **Duel** , we learn that mutoids have been surgically modified as well as having their memories erased ( _"Memory is an encumbrance, all trace of it is removed and with it all trace of identity"_ ).

Male Federation troopers are mainly faceless entities behind their masks, but the occasional one has an opportunity to make an impression (Trooper Par -  **Trial** , Grose -  **Moloch** ).

Religion has officially disappeared from the Federation. In answer to a question from Gan, Blake relates that  _"places of religious assembly"_  had been demolished several centuries ago ( **Pressure Point** ). What remains is unofficial or alien. The cult run by Vargas on  **Cygnus Alpha**  is designed to control an unruly population of convicts with superstition, lies and drugs. Belkov exploits the superstitions of the Mecronians ( **Games** ). Meegat seems to have a priestly function on Cephlon ( **Deliverance** ) for a cult focussed on the ancient rocket silo, similar to the Pacific island aeroplane cults, perhaps. Although Norl, leader of the passive inhabitants of Kezarn has no stated religious function, he too, has a priestly aspect. Religion mostly seems to belong to societies in decline, the rest of the galaxy's inhabitants pay no heed to it. An aura of occultism surrounds the Intruder. Her sarcophagus has cabalistic designs on the floor, where priestesses conduct a ceremony to conjure up visions of robed and masked figures who will play their part in her re-incarnation, terminating in the unbidden appearance of a threatening figure in black.


	2. Part 2

#### THE CHARACTERS

Cast

By luck or by judgement, a really good cast was assembled, which is a prime requirement for a series/serial of this sort. Too many science fiction series rely on melodramatic fireworks to tide them over the wooden acting of the majority of the cast. Most of these players have had considerable stage and television experience, and some quite eminent guest stars pass through. Attention has been paid to the concept of "physique du role", everybody fits the part. Naturally, later episodes can be written to exploit the strong points of the players, but the early ones demonstrate that the mixture was right from the start, the actors seem to have had no difficulty in getting into their parts. Small roles are cast from strength, providing keen competition for the permanent crew. There is no question of the regulars outshining them, one or two bravura performances must have made them look to their laurels.

 
    
    
    Roj Blake              Gareth Thomas          
    Jenna Stannis          Sally Knyvette         
    Kerr Avon              Paul Darrow            
    Cally                  Jan Chappell           
    Vila Restal            Michael Keating        
    Olag Gan               David Jackson          
    Dayna Mellanby         Josette Simon          
    Del Tarrant            Stephen Pacey          
    Soolin                 Glynis Barber          
    Zen                    Peter Tuddenham [voice]
    Orac                   Peter Tuddenham [voice]
    Slave                  Peter Tuddenham [voice]
    
    Servalan               Jacqueline Pearce      
    Travis-1               Stephen Greif          
    Travis-2               Brian Croucher         
    

 

* * *

 **BLAKE**    
The hero. Blake is well presented, care is taken not to make him too perfect for credibility. On the whole, he is a good guerilla leader, perceptive and imaginative as well as showing the more conventional virtues of idealism and goodwill. Blake is usually a patient person, although Avon often provokes him to asperity.

As with present day guerilla/terrorist activities, his operations often have a high casualty rate, which doesn't seem to trouble him inordinately. Lives are lost in the initial abortive breakout ( **Space Fall** ) and the rescue attempt on Cygnus Alpha. Significantly, most of the prisoners decline to join him for a second escape. Guilty (Federation officials) and innocent (XK-72 personnel) alike are liable to be destroyed in the crossfire.

His, is the positive purpose that guides the  _Liberator's_  activities. Far from infallible, he is rescued from disaster several times by Avon and Jenna, having got into the predicament by ignoring their advice in the first place. His refusal to kill Servalan and Travis when he has the opportunity ( **Orac, Duel** ) is ill-judged, although his reason, that they would only be replaced by another pursuer, whereas he knows he can defeat them, is quite a good one.

His humanitarian ideals lead Blake to go out of his way to help others; preventing the genetically engineered Decimas from being exterminated by their creators ( **The Web** ), transporting the survivors of the  _Ortega_  and their vital neutrotope home to **Destiny**.  _"That great big bleeding heart will get us all killed one of these days"_  comments Avon sourly, as Blake helps Dr. Bellfriar to identify an alien organism. He is even more critical when Blake proposes to warn everyone, including Servalan, to steer clear of plague-stricken Fosforon ( **Killer** ). However, this idealism can pay dividends, such as going to the aid of Ensor's sabotaged spacecraft, which leads to the vital acquisition of Orac.

He eventually falls into the trap of believing in his own legend. Obsessed by his desire to capture the Federation Control Centre, he misleads the crew into following him and conceals vital information about Servalan's ambush of the local resistance fighters from them. He is rewarded with an empty installation from which the equipment had been removed decades ago, and must face the terrible responsibility for Gan's death in their retreat. This experience comes close to destroying him.

His interpersonal skills are considerable. He usually manages his disparate crew very well and he is generally diplomatic and winning, especially with neutrals. His ties are closest with Jenna, on whom he relies for support. He is firm with Vila and considerate with Gan. With Cally, who has a marked similarity to his idealistic nature, his relationship is close but brotherly. He will confide his more hazardous plans to her before disclosing them to the others ( **Weapon, Pressure Point** ) and he is more receptive to her telepathy than they are (in  **Volcano**  she cannot make the pre-occupied Avon hear her warning). His relationship with Avon is strangely symbiotic. Their skills are largely complementary; leadership, personnel management and general strategy (Blake) versus scientific knowledge, pragmatism and clear-thinking caution (Avon). Relentlessly swift to puncture any self-conceit, Avon prevents Blake from exercising too complete a control over the crew, while Blake restrains Avon's criminal impulses and gives his life some purpose. Unable to break away until sundered by the Galactic War, they orbit each other like binary planets, light and dark.

Inevitably, Blake becomes increasing fanatical in his campaign to find and destroy Star One central control computer, provoking Avon to a fierce outburst of rejection ( **Star One** ) which Blake finds very hurtful ( _"I never realised, you really do hate me, don't you?"_ ). But neither is consistent in his attitude to the other and soon after, they have apparently resumed their normal relationship. Badly wounded by Travis and forced to resign command to Avon, Blake declares that he has always trusted him, motivating him to fight off the alien invasion until reinforcements arrive.

Casting: Excellent. Fine voice and friendly face, not too handsome. Very easy and naturalistic style, particularly with the dialogue.

 

* * *

 **JENNA**    
An outlaw. Her previous career as a "free-trader" has accustomed her to a hard and dangerous way of life. Criminal contacts from her past float to the surface from time to time ( **Bounty, Shadow** ). When Blake first meets her in the prison cage, she seem self-assured, tough and unsympathetic, although her first act is to prompt Vila to restore the watch he has just stolen from Blake. However, she softens to Blake's predicament and soon becomes his main ally. As a skilled pilot, she is crucial to his escape plans and she also guards his back against Avon. There is a physical tussle over the teleport controls when Avon fails to persuade her to join him in abandoning Blake on Cygnus Alpha. It is she who performs the vital function of training the inexperienced crew to operate the  _Liberator,_  several training sessions feature in the early episodes.

Her nature is pragmatic and sceptical ( _"You don't really believe that?"_  says Avon in  **Space Fall** ,  _"No, but I'd like to,"_  she replies) and although she is fond of Blake she can view him objectively, thus in  **Star One** , she asks Avon to watch out for him as he is not giving himself enough time to think.  _"Blake is an idealist, Jenna, he cannot afford to think,"_  comes the inevitable reply. It is she who spots the Andromedan invasion fleet and takes the decision to alert Servalan, whose instant mobilisation saves the day.

Compact but surprisingly muscular, Jenna is a useful soldier ( **Project Avalon** ), perfectly prepared to fight and kill, single-handed if necessary ( **Time Squad, Bounty** ). She rescues her male colleagues from Travis in  **Pressure Point**  by holding Servalan hostage for them. She is a very bold pilot, prepared to fly to hell and back ( **Duel, Breakdown** ), it is no surprise therefore, that her reported end is violent ( _"She hit the self-destruct."_  -  **Blake** ).

Blake and Jenna demonstrate affection freely. She embraces him on his safe return from the first teleport trial and they frequently touch, usually an arm round the shoulders. Not a virginal lady, she has had lovers before (Tarvin) and may be intimate with Blake, although she sometimes manifests reservations about him ( **Pressure Point, Trial** ). She easily twists the amorous Gola ( **The Keeper** ) round her little finger, in order to find that amulet. Her prestige as the pilot gives authority to her relationships with the others. Vila holds her in considerable respect, he is not entirely joking when he tells Blake  _"It's an honour to be locked up with her"._  It is to Jenna that Gan confides his story ( **Time Squad** ) and he makes great efforts to learn to handle  _Liberator_  under her tuition. Her relationship with Cally is amicable, although she does not share the latter's taste for seeking out dangerous missions ( **Weapon** ). Her attitude to Avon is more complex. As Blake's chief ally, she has good reason to mistrust him. No sooner have they salvaged _Liberator_ , than he is tempting her to abandon Blake on Cygnus Alpha and share the loot with him. He seldom misses an opportunity to sow doubts about Blake, which are sometimes hard to counter ( **Trial** ). Yet quite often they seem to have a good under- standing between them, sharing a detention cell in Space World, they sit in close contact. Avon probably appeals to her more cynical and lawless side.

Casting: Very good. High class appearance and voice. The part is played briskly and unsentimentally.

 

* * *

 **AVON**    
A genuine and apparently unrepentant criminal specialising in fraud. The most intellectual of the crew and the most knowledgeable, particularly about electronics; he is a very useful person, but dangerously double-edged. An Alpha Grade like Blake, Avon is a fallen angel, supercilious and fastidious in manner, caring little for the opinion of others and often ruthlessly selfish (he is quite candid about this --  _"I look upon self-interest as my great strength"_  he says to an indignant Tarrant in  **Dawn of the Gods** ). However, he is no degenerate; Dorian's revelations are greeted with revulsion ( **Rescue** ) and the ghastly Shrinker is also an object of loathing ( **Rumours of Death** ). Avon has his own code of conduct which includes a certain sense of honour ( _"I'm a man of my word. In the end, that's all there is really"_  -  **Rumours of Death** ), but expediency reigns supreme ( _"I have no objection to shooting Travis in the back"_  -  **The Keeper** ).

He is avidly curious. A technocrat par excellence, in the early episodes he is often seen investigating  _Liberator's_  circuitry ( **Cygnus Alpha, The Web** ). The knowledge thus gained enables him to modify equipment or produce his own (the detection shield -  **Trial** ) and keep a rein on Zen ( **Breakdown** ) and Orac ( **Shadow** ). It also comes in handy as a bargaining counter,  _"Kill me,"_  he tells Servalan when cornered  _"and you will never control this ship"_. This relish for investigation leads him to turn detective aboard the  _Ortega_  ( _"I don't care if their planet turns into a mushroom, I shall stay because I don't like an unsolved mystery"_  -  **Mission to Destiny** ). Although he criticises Blake's curiosity (Horizon), he runs similar risks to satisfy his own when the mood takes him ( **Ultraworld, Moloch** ).

Avon could be said to function as Blake's doppel-ganger, which enables him to display the dark and negative aspects denied to a popular hero. His nature is devious and ambivalent, he can be sullen, carping and malicious. His relationship with Blake is complex. He does not occupy the traditional position of second-in-command since he refuses to owe Blake allegiance. Blake acknowledges this in his remark to Cally, _"If he stays, it must be for his own reasons"_  ( **Breakdown** ), and generally knows better than to demand unthinking obedience from him. Avon's own reasons for joining Blake in his desperate attempt on Federation Control Centre are, as he candidly admits, that if it is successful, Blake will have to stay on Earth as leader and co-ordinator of the opposition forces, leaving  _Liberator_  to him. This detachment counterbalances Blake's authority with the others, sometimes causing them to think more carefully about their own position.

Yet he is somehow unable either to sever the connection or let Blake perish as a result of his own ignorance or carelessness ( **The Web, Voice from the Past, Trial** ). Having arranged a refuge on the XK-72 spacestation, he races back to give the alarm when he discovers Kayn's duplicity. When it is clear that his private message to Servalan revealing the fugitive Travis's whereabouts has endangered Blake, he teleports down to save him ( **Hostage** ), paying the price, a shot in the arm from Travis, without complaint. Left alone on the _Liberator_  with every excuse to assume that his companions are dead ( **Horizon** ), his struggle to break away is protracted. In an anguished voice, he questions Orac repeatedly on the logistics of single-handed operation and survival odds, but in spite of the favourable reply, he is driven to risk all in a rescue attempt. Is it the proximity of Federation pursuit ships, or can he not bear the prospect of solitude? When Blake is incapacitated in the final confrontation with Travis ( **Star One** ) Avon promises to take  _Liberator_  into battle against overwhelming odds to check the alien fleet until Federation ships arrive. His last look at Blake, before he turns to give his orders, is full of pain and compassion.

His relationships with the rest of the crew are generally prickly. Jenna as Blake's chief ally, resists his attempts at subversion ( **Cygnus Alpha, Breakdown** ) but seems ready to fall in with his proposal to abandon Blake in  **Trial**. Gan is treated relatively kindly, perhaps he is not fair game. Avon has more respect for Vila's felonious talents than he shows ( _"We can easily replace a pilot, but a good thief is rare"_ ), but seldom misses an opportunity to gibe, and Vila affords him plenty. However, they have a degree of mutual understanding sometimes verging on comradeship, as in their joint venture into Krantor's casino behind Blake's back. His relationship with Cally is important. She is in some ways Blake's female counterpart, so that the unshakeable honesty that attracts him to Blake must attract him to her. Her psychic abilities are sometimes greeted with derision ( _"You do not know they are in trouble, you reason it from the evidence"_  -  **Horizon** ), but that may be fear lest she should detect his own deceptions ( **Hostage** ). Although he mocks her drily for staking both their lives on Blake's return in  **Mission to Destiny** , he later confidently stakes his own life on her loyalty in  **Sarcophagus**. It could be argued that when she is lost he begins the descent into paranoia. The impulsive and cocksure Tarrant is a thorn in the side. Avon regards him as expendable and frequently gives him his head, using him as a lightning conductor while he himself bides his time in the background, taking the initiative when he thinks the moment is right ( **The Harvest of Kairos** ). He is quite indulgent with Dayna, but seldom makes any effort to shield her from danger, she would probably be furious if he did, but he will intervene promptly if anyone holds a gun to her head ( **Harvest of Kairos, Power** ), of course, this may be merely a demonstration of his leadership. Soolin, being a cynic of similar proportions to himself, is often both confidant and sparring partner. However, Avon's independent pose does not deceive his companions.  _"You may think you're a loner,"_  says Dayna  _"but you're not really"._  Dorian is even more certain,  _"I wouldn't expect you to admit it, but you belong to them Avon, just as they belong to you"._

Echoes of his previous attachment to Anna resound when he meets her brother Del Grant ( **Countdown** ). The trauma of her loss has caused a retreat from personal relationships and he refuses to confide in Blake when the latter offers sympathy. The later discovery of her treachery and subsequent career as an informer increases the trauma ( **Rumours of Death** ), although he may have exorcised her ghost sufficiently to turn to Cally for companionship.

Avon uses his cynicism as his shield. A highly defensive personality, his chief weapon is his malicious tongue coupled with an extensive vocabulary. He is not however, invulnerable. In  **Deliverance** , Vila and Gan watch with evident amusement as the worshipping Meegat drives a coach and horses through his defences. Avon is not without a sense of humour and sometimes in an unguarded moment can produce a winning smile.

In the first two series he usually avoids violent action ( _"I think I shall contain my enthusiasm here in the warm."_  -  **Project Avalon** ) and claims to despise heroics. However, he can be cold-bloodedly reckless when playing for high stakes such as control of the  _Liberator._  In the harsher climate of the last two series his position as leader and his own determination to keep control of  _Liberator_  and  _Scorpio_  expose him to much more violence, hardly an episode goes by without a knock on the head, sometimes several ( **Power** ). Avon's attitude to pain is stoic, neither mental nor physical anguish will divert him from his objectives. His most hair-raising exploit is to kidnap Shrinker ( **Rumours of Death** ) by allowing himself to be captured anonymously and holding out against the interrogators for five days until the specialist in unco-operative prisoners arrives in his cell, ready for teleportation to vengeance.

Avon has a certain affinity with Servalan ( _"It's a pity you and I were always on opposite sides."_  -  **Aftermath** ). Their meetings are charged with attraction as well as antagonism ( **Death-Watch** ). On several occasions he uses sex as a weapon when dealing with dangerous women. He receives Dayna's advances with aplomb ( _"I'm all in favour of healthy curiosity, I hope your's isn't satisfied too easily."_ ) and later casually passes her off as his wife ( **Powerplay** ) to Tarrant and Klegg, but he makes no effort to retain her affections and she is generally to be seen in Tarrant's company.

The role provides much of the tensile strength of the series. Any drama is generally improved by adding a factor of internal stress to the protagonist group, otherwise they can slip into bland or sentimental relationships which can make them a very dull set of people to watch when there is no rousing action taking place. It is the sort of problem that besets series like  **Star Trek**  and predecessors such as  **20,000 Leagues Under The Sea**. Scriptwriters try to relieve it from time to time by introducing a mental case or traitor to the crew, but these are one-episode solutions that leave little lasting trace. Avon is a potent and fascinating character. Without him, it is difficult to envisage the series being able to continue after Blake's departure at the end of Series 2.

Casting: Well-nigh perfect. Played unflinchingly without a hint of apology. Excellent nuance of facial expression, highly distinctive voice with the precise articulation needed for the venomous dialogue. Neat and feline in gesture.

 

* * *

 **CALLY**    
Telepathic Auron communications expert. Rebelling against the isolationism of Auron's leaders, she joined the resistance movement on Saurian Major and suffered exile from her own people. Cally is the only member of the original crew without a criminal record. Her character has considerable complexity. Of all the crew, she has the most empathy with Blake and his aims. She is dedicated, idealistic, clever and brave, perfectly capable of taking prompt action on her own initiative ( **Shadow** ). She is also something of a kamikaze; at her first appearance, she declares  _"There will be companions for my death. I plan to raid the Complex and destroy until I am destroyed"_. It is she who suggests raiding the Federation Weapons Research Base for armaments to attack Federation Control with. When Blake reveals his intention to join with Kasabi's resistance fighters in raiding Earth Control, she backs it instantly.

However, she is desperately vulnerable to psychological attack by rogue Aurons ( **The Web** ) and assorted telepathic aliens ( **Shadow, Sarcophagus, Ultraworld** ). The Thaarn, half-crazed by his loneliness, goes to elaborate lengths to gain her companionship ( **Dawn of the Gods** ), not dreaming that she could attempt to destroy him. Her isolation from her own kind makes her exile doubly hard to bear. Servalan's destruction of Auron ends all hope of reconciliation and return. Far from being alien, although not of Terrestrial descent, she is the most tenderly human of the crew, as Avon recognises with his remark  _"She is more human than I am"_ ( **Shadow** ), although in their quarrel in  **Sarcophagus**  she accuses him of testing her reactions ( _"After all, I'm not quite human"_ ) it is the malign influence of the Intruder who is trying to alienate her from the crew. Avon counters this by placing himself in extreme peril, confident that she will choose the human side.

She often seems to function as the soul of the group, personifying the feminine principle or anima. The chieftain Ro and the assistant kommisar ( **Horizon** ) are both disturbed by her mystic personality. Her warning to the former motivates him to reject the Federation at a crucial moment.  _"Are we fanatics?"_  she asks Blake as he prepares to destroy Star One,  _"are you sure that what we are going to do is justified?"_  His reply that it is the only way he can be sure that he is right, visibly troubles her.

In Series 3 she moves into a closer relationship with Avon, probably as she is his only remaining intellectual equal, and he manifests unusual concern for her wellbeing. This attachment arms her to break the hold of the Intruder from the  **Sarcophagus**  to prevent her from slaughtering Avon, who has deliberately provoked her to a killing rage to this end, in order to regain control of the  _Liberator_. Interestingly enough, this is foreshadowed by Blake's hallucination in  **Voice from the Past**  that they have paired up ( _`mutual affinities"_ ) and are plotting to oust him.

Casting: Excellent. Not conventionally pretty, with a rather high-pitched voice, but projects an emotionally-charged character of great intensity.

 

* * *

 **VILA**    
A thief and lifetime criminal. He actually seems rather proud of this ( _"More a vocation than a profession"_ ). A streetwise graduate of the Federation's Delta service grades, he is sly, lazy and sharp-witted. The clever thief and trickster has a long and honourable tradition in folklore, provoking laughter, sympathy and some admiration. Vila fills this role very well, he is good-natured, tolerant and abhors violence.

His skills make him a very useful member of the crew ( _"a pilot can easily be replaced, a good thief is rare"_  - Avon) and he is given plenty of opportunity to use them, lockpicking ( **Time Squad; Bounty** ), breaking and entering ( **Seek, Locate, Destroy; Project Avalon** ) and consultant safe-cracker ( **The City at the Edge of the World** ). His sleight-of-hand tricks are are used to distract the guards on the prison transport while Blake and Avon slip through the inspection panel during the first escape attempt, and to placate Gola, Charl of the Goths, while Jenna searches for an important clue ( **The Keeper** ).

Vila adopts an unheroic stance,  _"No need for belligerence, pretty lady, I'm harmless."_  he says as he surrenders to a gun-toting Cally in  **Time Squad** ; although he is not always as faint-hearted as he makes out to be, sometimes screwing himself up to independent action when absolutely necessary ( **Bounty** ) and rushing back to rescue Kerrill when he hears her shriek of surprise as she falls into the transporter ( **The City at the Edge of the World** ). He never volunteers for anything and has generally to be coerced into action, usually by Tarrant. Vila knows the universe is hostile and never expects quarter. Running away is his favourite strategy, although physically he is no weed but obviously fit and agile. He usually attaches himself to Avon, reckoning that the latter's contempt for heroics will keep him safe; this ploy is not always successful.

Vila is not entirely reliable, dropping his gun at a vital point during the abortive escape in Space Fall and dozing off or leaving the teleport controls when on duty. His worst offence is sneaking off to Space City behind Cally's back ( **Shadow** ) after hiding Orac (who has an ulterior motive for suggesting this arrangement). A similar expedition to Freedom City in the company of Avon and Orac drops him quite literally in the hot seat, but he has the satisfaction of winning a large sum of money even if he may never have the opportunity to spend it. Vila is likely to complain of headaches and stomach pains in moments of stress and to badger Cally for a potion from the medicine chest. Although not a real alcoholic, he has a taste for liquor and swallows it whenever he can, enthusiastically drinking his way through Dorian's wine cellar.

He has a genuine liking for Blake and Gan and is polite to the ladies although he makes a few playful passes at Dayna ( **Death-Watch, Rescue** ). He seems to respect and rather admire Avon ( _"With hands like that ... you might have made a respectable pickpocket"_ ), although their relationship is a barbed one, from their constant bickering come many of the series' most memorable lines. Tarrant's dangerous enthusiasm is regarded with cynicism and well-grounded mistrust, their dialogue usually has a sharp edge to it. Vila could be said to represent the voice of Everyman, albeit with a better than average vocabulary.

Casting: Excellent. Has an expressive face and the right voice. Avoids sentimentality, projects a believable, likable rogue without slipping into the usual whining "little man" characterisation.

 

* * *

 **GAN**    
Not the muscleman of conventional drama. Although normally gentle and protective (he is several times seen wielding the medical kit), he is the only member of the crew convicted of a violent crime (he took a Federation guard apart with his bare hands after the killing of his woman). He has been fitted with a brain implant to prevent him from killing again. While he can cheerfully throw opponents around in a melee, he is unable to fire a gun at anybody or kill them with his hands until the implant malfunctions ( **Breakdown** ), when his immense physique makes him very dangerous.

Presumably a Delta Grade citizen like Vila, Gan is relatively uneducated but he is far from simple-minded, being naturally good-mannered and well-spoken. He makes efforts at self-improvement and can be seen using Orac as a learning machine. He becomes a useful crewman after Jenna's training. Gan is usually a firm and comforting support to Blake ( _"Another one who's willing to let Blake do his thinking for him"_  - Avon), but not, in fact, totally uncritical. Transparently honest and forthright, he is dismayed at Blake's proposal to use the Terra Nostra crime syndicate for his own ends and protests strongly ( _"Think what it is they control; everything dirty, degrading and cruel on just about every colonized world."_ ).

Well-liked by the rest of the crew, Gan is difficult to quarrel with, even Avon doesn't often sharpen his tongue on him. His death is the first major tragedy of the series.

Casting: Very Good. Avoids the "dumb ox" characterisation.

 

* * *

 **SERVALAN**    
The Dark Lady of Space Command, Federation Supreme Commander and chief antagonist. She personifies the regime's ruthless tyranny and functions as the focus for all opposition. The power of a drama is often directly related to the potency of the enemy, and she is an exceptionally powerful adversary. According to her ex-tutor Kasabi, who assessed her as unfit for command, she gained her eminence through her powerful connections. Servalan represents authority with a seductive beauty. Her external appearance and frequently smiling expression, masks an evil nature effectively on first acquaintance. No vestige of conscience ever seems to trouble Servalan. Torture and slaughter are used to maintain her power; genocide, germ warfare and trickery to extend it ( **Children of Auron, Death-watch** ). Her remorseless, conniving personality is most clearly demonstrated in her scenes with Travis, which usually feature one of them unfolding their plots to the other ( **Project Avalon, Deliverance** ). Whereas Travis is usually dour and obsessed, she is sparkling and vivacious, going about her wickedness with gusto. She is not averse to playing with fire, sometimes goading Travis and revelling in the explosion, When Travis escapes from the court martial during Blake's revenge attack on Servalan's headquarters, and demands a pursuit ship at gunpoint, she accedes without any apparent chagrin, even throwing in three mutoids to help him with his free-lance pursuit of Blake.

Such a character would take her pleasures where she found them and Servalan is in a position to indulge her partiality for men. At her introduction to the series, she is seen arguing with her toyboy Rai, a junior officer. The psycho-strategist Carnell ( **Weapon** ) has engaged her affections sufficiently for her to take his abrupt flight and cheeky parting shot with an indulgent smile. She evidently enjoys Jarvik's rough wooing ( **The Harvest of Kairos** ). Blake is regarded merely with the contemptuous dislike she reserves for all idealists, but she finds Avon rather attractive and alternates between the desire to win him over ( **Aftermath, Death-watch** ) and the urge to exterminate a dangerous opponent ( **Harvest of Kairos, Terminal** ). Vila, she regards with a contempt which is almost good-natured ( **Moloch** ); Cally, with something akin to jealousy ( **Powerplay, Harvest of Kairos** ); Dayna, with pure hatred (possibly spurred on by her secret guilt over Mellanby's death). Manifestly, the chief objects of her desire are  _Liberator_  and Orac and she would give anything to lay her hands on them. This handicaps Travis in his campaign to destroy Blake and leads to elaborate plots such as the one to introduce a deadly virus to the crew and thus take over the undamaged ship.

Servalan is quite ready to venture into the field herself, clambering down dripping tunnels after Orac, and getting shot down in the Galactic War while making a personal appearance at the front ( **Aftermath** ) or investigating the Sardoan matter transformer ( **Moloch** ). She extricates herself from trouble with murder (of Hal Mellanby), theft (of Orac), threats and bribery, surviving the hazards of the Galactic War and the Chengan body-snatching expedition, to become President of the Federation. When the High Council regains power and ousts her, she adopts the identity of `Commissioner Sleer', resorting to more murders ( **Traitor** ) to protect herself (disguising her striking appearance seems not to have occurred to her). She is not cast down by this reversal of fortune. When she meets Tarrant on Virn ( **Sand** ) she is confident of regaining the power she loves so much.

Casting: Ideal. A very sexy lady with a voice to match. Projects authority very well (some viewers have suggested the character is modelled on Margaret Thatcher, however, the first series predates that lady's rise to power).

 

* * *

 **TRAVIS I**    
Servalan's executive arm. Travis is driven by the stark obsession to see Blake dead. He has refused plastic surgery for the damage inflicted on his face by Blake at their first encounter years before, probably in order to keep his motivation intact. He is a military extremist, already on suspension when the action begins, pending an investigation into the massacre of civilians who had surrendered after a revolt. Remarking that  _"Travis is an advocate of total war"_ , Servalan ignores the protests of other officers to make full use of his dangerous talents to locate and destroy Blake, an end which he pursues with venomous dedication. Travis's speciality is the baited trap ( **Seek, Locate, Destroy; Duel; Project Avalon** ).

Travis inhabits a dreary hell almost entirely unrelieved by human feelings. He takes pleasure in tormenting his captives: Cally, tortured unconscious ( **S.L.D.** ); Avalon taunted with the knowledge that she is the bait to entrap Blake. He is quite likely to abuse his underlings, notably the mutoid in  **Duel**. However, a better self does exist and it emerges briefly and even movingly to protest against the enslavement of the murdered surgeon Marriott's family, sacrificed to one of Servalan's secret schemes to acquire Orac. Of course, his daemon swiftly reasserts control and his momentary regret dissolves without trace. This effect is gained with very few words and restrained facial expression - top quality acting.

Casting: First class. Travis is a high calibre sombre villain in black leather, making a strong contrast to Servalan's evil but irrepressible joi de vivre. His grainy voice matches the characterisation well.

 

* * *

 **TRAVIS II**    
The replacement, 2nd series. The first Travis has been replaced by a younger man and appears to have been considerably demoted by the transformation. During his first appearance (Weapon) he refers to his visits for retraining to a psychiatric institution which appears to have altered his personality and undermined his confidence. The resulting character, although more overtly vicious than Travis-1, is not so formidable and frightening. He projects a more proletarian image, particularly vocally, and he finds Servalan difficult to cope with. She manifests increasing contempt and threatens to sent him to the slave pits when he is no longer useful.

However, the character grows in stature at subsequent appearances. It is Servalan's fault that his trap in the fake control centre ( **Pressure Point** ) fails. She throws him to the wolves in an attempt to cover up her own failure and he is brought to trial for the massacre of civilians three years previously. Travis offers the defence that he acted upon instinct and an officer's instincts are a result of his training, therefore his judges are as guilty as he is. Delivered with passion, this argument shakes them, but they condemn him nevertheless. The watching Servalan comments that it is a pity he's got to die, since she has nobody half as good left to replace him and she is not unhappy when he escapes during Blake's punitive strike at her HQ.

In his remaining episodes, Travis's relationship with Servalan alternates between unofficial agent and fugitive. After the failure of his attempt to capture  _Liberator_ for himself ( **Hostage** ), Servalan, who has been tipped off by Avon, finds him defenceless, but allows him to go, on the agreement that if he delivers Blake to her, she will post him as dead ( _"There's no-one as free as a dead man."_ ) Their next joint effort ( **Voice from the Past** ) narrowly fails and Travis flees. He attaches himself to the runaway Docholee, not so much to locate Star One, as to trap Blake. Servalan decides to sacrifice him in order to kill Docholee and Blake with a grenade placed in his artificial arm ( **Gambit** ). Even after this betrayal, they recombine to track Lurgan's brain print on Goth ( **The Keeper** ), but it is at this point that Travis deserts her, when Servalan rejects his suggestion that they combine to rule the Federation through Star One. Realizing that she will never share power with him, and loathing the whole human race, he allies himself with the invading Andromedans for the ultimate revenge ( **Star One** ). This time Blake does not stay Avon's hand and Travis finally meets his fate.

Casting: While it is difficult to follow such a strong actor as the previous incumbent, this performance is better judged on its own merits, which are considerable, with no reference to its predecessor.

 

* * *

 **TARRANT**    
Renegade Federation officer, gun-runner and mercenary.  _"Tarrant is brave, young, handsome. They are three good reasons for anyone not to like him."_  says Avon, who is having the same kind of problems with him as he himself gave Blake. Tarrant is an enthusiastic adventurer, headstrong, impulsive and sure of himself; the longeurs of ship life make him increasingly impatient and inclined to challenge Avon. As Hower remarks ( **Volcano** ), he still sounds like the Federation captain he once was, and is not above bullying Vila into undertaking a dangerous mission ( **The City at the Edge of the World** ).

Tarrant is a capable officer, alert and suspicious. He quickly demonstrates that he is as good a fighter pilot as he thinks he is. Servalan and her officers take him seriously from the start (although on closer acquaintance, she finds him "both decorative and resourceful", Servalan is always appreciative of a likely lad). He quickly identifies the menace in  **Sarcophagus** , but when he confronts her, he does not have the mental equipment to fight her and must concede leadership to Avon, who does. Blake would probably have inspired him to higher aspirations and more worthwhile ends than the pragmatic Avon can.

Casting: Very good. Youthful with plenty of elan.

 

* * *

 **DAYNA**    
Weapons specialist. The youngest member of the crew, she has no criminal record, but as the daughter of an exiled ex-revolutionary she has inherited his opposition to the Federation. She and her father are living an isolated life on Saron very much like Miranda and Prospero in  **The Tempest** , when Avon happens upon them. Indeed, she greets him in very similar fashion to Miranda ( _"Oh brave new world that hath such creatures in it!"_ ) by planting a kiss on him and telling him he is very beautiful. She has received a good education and helps her father with his profession of designing defence systems. However, Servalan's murder of Mellanby propels her out of their refuge and into the universe of  _Liberator_  and the Federation with a personal feud to prosecute.

Tall, lithe and strong, she has a penchant for risky confrontation ( _"Without danger there's no pleasure"_ ), preferring primitive weapons like the bow or unarmed combat to more mundane methods of attack/defence. Her martial prowess is considerable; in the battle to regain  _Liberator,_  Avon and Tarrant watch with amused admiration as she disposes barehanded of the vile Klegg. When Jarvik defeats Tarrant and demands that the rest of the crew hand over their teleport bracelets, she insists he must take hers from her. The ensuing scuffle gives Avon and Tarrant time to get the antiquated landing module off the ground before Servalan can obliterate everything on the surface of Kairos. Her defeat of Gun-Sar, aided by the kinetic powers of two of the Seska, totally disrupts the succession of leadership among the Hommiks, bringing about the possibility for a complete change in their society ( **Power** ).

Like Avon, she takes a pride in manufacturing gadgets, weapons in her case ( **City at the Edge of the World** ), and often conceals explosives on her person ( **Ultraworld** ). Servalan has taken a powerful dislike to her and she is the first person to be lined up for execution in  **The Harvest of Kairos**. Fortunately, Avon intervenes with a characteristic deception.

Casting: Excellent, particularly fine voice. A very physical portrayal of a young adventuress.

 

* * *

 **SOOLIN**    
Gun fighter and mercenary. She joins the crew after the death of her associate Dorian. " _You give your allegiance easily?"_  asks Avon rather warily.  _"I don't give my allegiance at all"_  comes the reply  _"I sell my skills"_. These skills are formidable, she must be the only person to outdraw Belkov's computer game security system ( **Games** ).

Soolin is the most acid of the crew's ladies. Composed, cool and independent, she has quite a lot in common with Avon, including a determination never to show any sentiment. Her approach to problems is pragmatic, she shows no interest in ethical considerations (Vila:  _"You're not going to kill an unarmed prisoner?"_ Soolin:  _"When did you get religion"_  -  **Assassin** ) and is prompt to act when she sees the necessity. She conceals Orac from Muller's robot, preventing a catastrophic union that would enslave mankind ( **Headhunter** ). She also detects Piri's masquerade ( **Assassin** ) in time to save Avon from a nasty death.

As told by Dorian, her history is turbulent: to avenge her murdered family, she took service with the killers, learned their trade, then killed them all. Although she is introduced as Dorian's companion, she shows him no affection and receives his greeting kiss with indifference, which might explain his readiness to feed her to his creature along with the others ( **Rescue** ). The trouble is, just as we are beginning to get to know her she gets killed.

Casting: Very good, nicely sardonic approach.

 


	3. Part 3

### NOTABLE TRANSIENTS

**RAVELLA (The Way Back)** It is Ravella who starts the ball rolling by inveigling Blake into coming "outside". Never again can he retreat into the city, his fate is sealed.  **Gillian Bailey**  plays an earnest revolutionary most persuasively.

 **BRAN FOSTER (The Way Back)** Leader of the underground movement who reveals to Blake his obliterated past and the real fate of his relatives. A colourful personality, in contrast with the uniform city dwellers, played with great presence by  **Robert Beatty.**

 **DEV TARRANT (The Way Back)** Mysterious federation agent provocateur (is he related to Del and Deeta?), arranging the massacre of the dissidents and the elimination of Varon and Maja.  **Jeremy Wilkin**  is blandly treacherous.

 **VEN GLYND (The Way Back)** Arbiter General from the Justice Department who co-ordinates the false charges against Blake. Instructs the defending attorney to do his best for Blake, knowing full well that the evidence is rigged. Two-faced cunning from  **Robert James.**

 **DR. HAVANT (The Way Back)** Venal physician and crony of Glynd, who hypnotises children in his clinic into believing they have been molested by Blake. He also practices his art on Blake himself in the prison, to further condition and confuse him.  **Peter Williams**  depicts a suavely confident head of department.

 **ALTA MORAG (The Way Back)** Prosecuting attorney who masterminds the phony charges at Blake's trial.  **Susan Field**  presents a relentless bulldog of a woman.

 **VARON & MAJA (The Way Back) **Blake's defence attorney and his wife. They investigate the frameup in an attempt to prevent Blake from being sent to Cygnus Alpha. An eager young couple, not realising that success is their death warrant.  **Michael Halsey** and  **Pippa Steel**  are very touching.

 **COMPUTER OPERATOR (The Way Back)** Accepts Varon's bribe to retrieve information about the movements of Blake's alleged victims, then betrays him to the security guards. An acid-etched vignette from  **Nigel Lambert.**

 **RAIKER (Space Fall)** Malevolent first officer of the London. Makes dishonourable advances to Jenna and blackmails Blake into surrender by shooting unarmed prisoners. Sucked out of the transfer tube when Jenna closes the airlock and moves  _Liberator_  away. Convincingly nasty performance by  **Leslie Schofield.**

 **LEYLAN (Space Fall)** Captain of the London. Basically fair-minded but weak enough to agree to give Raiker a free hand in dealing with the rebels, although he knows the man is capable of savage behaviour.  **Glyn Owen**  plays a worn and rather demoralised man, ending his career on a prison ship.

 **NOVA (Space Fall)** Friendly convict who helps Blake in his escape attempt. His reward is to be trapped and suffocated by "sealing gel" while crawling along the service duct. Such an innocent looking lad ( **Tom Kelly** ), how did he earn his passage on the London?

 **VARGAS (Cygnus Alpha)** Megalomaniac high priest ruling the penal colony, deservedly teleported into empty space by Blake when he attempts to seize the _Liberator_. Outrageous performance by  **Brian Blessed** , who makes it a rule to enjoy this kind of thing.

 **KARA (Cygnus Alpha)** Vargas's beautiful lieutenant. She develops a soft spot for Gan and saves his life at the expense of her own.  **Pamela Salem**.

 **LARAN (Cygnus Alpha)** Convict squad leader who tries to kill Blake on his first brief teleport trip. He is no "believer", more power is all he wants. **Robert Russell.**

 **THREE ALIENS (Time Squad)** Protectors of the genetic banks on the small spaceship the crew salvage on their way to blow up the reactor on Saurian Major. Programmed to destroy any form of life they deem threatening, they give Jenna and Gan an unpleasant time while the others are away doing their sabotage.  **Tony Smart, Mark McBride and Frank Henson.**

 **NOVARA and GEELA (The Web)** The strangely remote brother and sister whom Blake contacts when he teleports down to meet "The Lost". They prove to be laboratory-constructed creatures manipulated by their makers to run the research laboratories.  **Miles Fothergill and Ania Marson.**

 **SAYMON (The Web)** A withered body immobilised in a life-support solution that houses the corporate identity of the Auron exiles known as "The Lost". They fled Auron to continue their unethical experiments unhindered, but now they are running out of power.  **Richard Beale**  supplies the corporate head.

 **THE DECIMAS (The Web)** Naturally breeding descendents of experimental creatures that got out of control, they are mutating into fully sentient people and "The Lost" want to put a stop to their independent existence. **Deep Roy, Gilda Cohen, Ismet Hassam, Marcus Powell, Molly Tweedley and Willie Sheara.**

 **RAI (Seek, Locate, Destroy)** Handsome young officer at Servalan's HQ. He is obviously on terms of intimacy with the Supreme Commander but when he ventures to criticise her choice of Travis to pursue  _Liberator's_  crew, she is furious.  **Ian Oliver.**

 **DR KENDALL (Mission to Destiny)** Leader of the Destiny mission, bringing home the neutrotope to save the planet from the deadly fungus. Crew quarrels (Sonnheim and Levett) and a murderer on board are making his life difficult.  **Barry Jackson.**

 **LEVETT (Mission to Destiny)** Aloof, sardonic and husky-voiced, she sparks a momentary glint in Avon. A pity we didn't see more of her.  **Kate Coleridge.**

 **SONNHEIM (Mission to Destiny)** Moody _Ortega_  crewman who gives Cally a fright by sneaking up on her in the store room. Levett has obviously rejected him and his intense bitterness is evident to all. He is suspected of being the murderer until Avon's investigations clear him.  **Nigel Humphreys'**  black scowl gives the character credible depth.

 **SARA (Mission to Destiny)** Petite, enterprising and murderous. How did she get Dortmunn's body on top of that cupboard?  **Beth Morris.**

 **MANDRIAN (Mission to Destiny)** Sara's lover, who finds out that she is not quite as fond of him as he thought she was. He protests against Kendall's plan to entrust the neutrotope to Blake, but soon realises who the criminal must be.  **Stephen Tate.**

 **GIROC (Duel)** An unregenerate old bag ( **Patsy Smart** ) who heartily enjoys Travis's vicious display of savagery and is not above interfering in the action, to the fury of her colleague ----->

 **SINOFAR (Duel)** The beautiful supernatural being ( **Isla Blair** ) who arranges the duel between Blake and Travis (seconded by Jenna and First Mutoid).

 **FIRST MUTOID (Duel)** Cool, emotionless Travis subordinate, revealed as a pitiful victim when Travis taunts and threatens her.  **Carol Royle.**

 **SECOND MUTOID (Project Avalon)** Not at all pitiful, going about her work with cheerful alacrity. Dangerous little madam.  **Glynis Barber's**  first role.

 **AVALON (Project Avalon)** _"Another idealist, poor but honest"_  says Avon mockingly, but Avalon has been a busy woman, starting resistance movements on 30 Federation planets. Travis is after her network of helpers besides using her to snare Blake.  **Julia Vidler**  looks perhaps a bit young to have accomplished so much.

 **CHEVNER (Project Avalon)** Avalon's devoted lieutenant who guides Blake to the Federation HQ for the rescue attempt. Knowing Avalon so well, he is not deceived by the robot, who promptly kills him.  **David Bailie**

 **ROBOT AVALON (Project Avalon)** A descendant of the false Maria in Fritz Lang's `Metropolis', created to spread a plague among the crew. Gives Gan a horrible fright as she overpowers him aboard  _Liberator_.  **Julia Vidler.**

 **PROFESSOR KAYN (Breakdown)** Treacherous neural surgeon who betrays the crew to the Federation while he is supposed to be operating on Gan at the neutral XK-72. Blake is so riled that he threatens to destroy his hands. One can always depend on haughty superiority from **Julian Glover.**

 **FARREN (Breakdown)** Administrator of the XK-72 space laboratory with whom Avon arranges to take refuge (and make a fortune out of selling teleport secrets).  **Ian Thompson**  portrays a fussy but rather endearing little man trying to preserve neutrality and control the egotistical Kayn.

 **RENOR (Breakdown)** Kayn's assistant. A good-natured fellow with a roving eye ( _"This ship's full of pretty girls"_ ), he finds his chief's behaviour thoroughly shocking.  **Christian Roberts.**

 **SARKOFF (Bounty)** Ex-President of Lindor, held in genteel captivity by the Federation. Blake wants to return him to the fray and is pained to find that he is not at all keen.  **T. P. Mackenna**  depicts a charming but self-pitying personality.

 **TYCE (Bounty)** Loomingly tall daughter of exiled ex-president Sarkoff, chafing at his acceptance of his fate and ripe for rebellion.  **Carinthia West.**

 **TARVIN (Bounty)** Amagon smuggler/pirate, ex-colleague and lover of Jenna, who entraps the crew for the bounty. Enjoys his work, proud of the price on his head. Played with a swagger by  **Marc Zuber.**

 **ENSOR Jr (Deliverance)** Rescued by the crew after his sabotaged ship crashes on Cephlon, he is so obsessed with getting the power cells to his father that he hijacks the  _Liberator_  but dies of his injuries, though not before telling Blake and Cally about Orac.  **Tony Caunter.**

 **MARRYAT (Deliverance)** He it was who saved Travis's life when Blake shot him years before. Travis is not happy when he learns that Servalan has sent him to his death, and posted him as a deserter, which will result in his family being sent into slavery.  **James Lister.**

 **MEEGAT (Deliverance)** Priestess on Cephlon, awaiting "the nameless lord" who will deliver her people. A naive and trusting lady who embarrasses but captivates Avon who fulfils the prophecy for her.  **Suzan Farmer.**

 **ENSOR (Orac)** Irascible elderly inventor who tries to sell his last brainchild Orac to the Federation for a hundred million. Servalan plans to cheat him. Orac has taken on many facets of Ensor's personality. Played with relish by  **Derek Farr**  (who also provides Orac's voice in this episode).

 **ALTA ONE and ALTA TWO (Redemption)** Icy, inhuman ladies clad in skin-tight blue Lycra, who transmit the orders of "The System". One ( **Sheila Ruskin** ) is elegantly remote, Two ( **Harriet Philpin** ) has a strident voice and a mad, unblinking stare.

 **SLAVE (Redemption)** He helps Blake escape from the System's guards. Resignation seems to be his chief characteristic,  **Roy Evans**  plays him with a sad dignity.

 **LARGO (Shadow)** The epitome of a loathsome drug baron, forcing addicts to commit robbery for a fix, suitably eliminated by his own henchman. Splendidly vicious performance by  **Derek Smith.**

 **BEK (Shadow)** Forced to steal for the Terra Nostra in order to finance the drug habits of Hanna and Peety, he rebels when Largo pushes him too far and throws his lot in with Blake.  **Karl Howden**  gives a sympathetic performance as a young man struggling to protect his doomed siblings. It is perhaps a trifle unkind of Blake to return him to Space City.

 **HANNA (Shadow)** Ghostly pale drug addict who helps Avon and Gan to overpower Largo's enforcer. Killed by Orac/Alien when she tries to disconnect him. **Adrienne Burgess**  gives a heartrending portrayal of an intelligent girl enslaved by Shadow.

 **ENFORCER (Shadow)** _"You're just an enforcer, paid for your gun, not your brain"_  says Largo contemptuously when his bodyguard questions his actions - his last and worst mistake.  **Archie Tew**  creates a character who, one feels, will not be so careless.

 **CLONEMASTER FEN (Weapon)** Herself a clone, she creates two clone Blakes (or maybe more) for Servalan. Her profession has strict ethics (the "Rule of Life") and she is revolted both by Travis's destruction of the first clone, and Servalan's hypocrisy.  **Kathleen Byron**.

 **COSER (Weapon)** Psychotic weaponry technician who murders his colleagues, destroys all research records and makes off with his prototype IMIPAK, plus a slavegirl to carry the bags.  **John Bennet**  smoulders magnificently.

 **RASHEL (Weapon)** Slavegirl who turns the tables on Servalan and is rewarded with the Blake clone and a whole world to call her own. **Candace Glendenning** projects a bewildered but determined character.

 **THE CLONE BLAKE (Weapon)** _"This man is a copy of Blake, a physical copy only, because he was not grown from a cell taken from Blake... We have given him some background knowledge, the beginnings of identity and the basis of understanding."_  says his creator, Clonemaster Fen. He quickly acquires more Blake characteristics and breaks away from Servalan's control to frustrate her plans, to the sardonic amusement of an increasingly insubordinate Travis.

 **CARNELL (Weapon)** Wickedly attractive psycho-strategist ("puppeteer") employed by Servalan to track Coser and Blake and predict their behaviour. They clearly find each other fascinating.  **Scott Fredericks**  enjoys himself.

 **KOMMISAR (Horizon)** Mentor of Ro, native chieftain. Tortures Blake, Jenna and Cally (Vila confesses immediately). Ro reverts to primitive and kills him with a blow-dart. Oily hypocrisy from  **William Squire.**

 **RO (Horizon)** Chieftain of Horizon (once Silmarina). Reluctant to provoke the Federation, he acquiesces to their mining operations and the enslavement of his people. At the Kommissar's behest he orders the torture of Blake and the other captives, but Cally convinces him of his personal danger and he revolts.  **Darien Angadi.**

 **SELMA (Horizon)** Ro's betrothed. Having rejected Federation "training" and fomented trouble, she is given the choice of knuckling under or working till she drops in the mines, which is where Blake and Co. meet her. Ro cannot forget her and defies the Kommissar to bring her back, marking another step towards rejection.  **Souad Faress.**

 **KASABI (Pressure Point)** Cadet school tutor turned freedom fighter. Hated by Servalan, the pupil who shopped her for treason. Captured and fatally interrogated by Travis and Servalan. Ravaged performance by **Jane Sherwin.**

 **VERON (Pressure Point)** Kasabi's daughter. Pathetically young to be mixed up in such affairs, she is blackmailed into betraying Blake and Avon by Travis holding her mother hostage, but then helps Jenna to rescue them.  **Yolande Palfrey.**

 **ZIL (Trial)** Strange alien who tries to explain the facts of life as a parasite on a planet-sized life-form, believing that she is protecting a newly-hatched youngster. She does manage to re-awaken Blake's fighting spirit.  **Claire Lewis.**

 **SAMOR (Trial)** Federation Fleet Warden General whom Servalan appoints as arbiter in Travis's court martial. She is hiding behind his unimpeachable honesty to avoid the consequences of her own folly in messing up Travis's ambush.  **John Savident**  brings an imposing but restrained presence to the part.

 **BERCOL and RONTANE (Seek, Locate, Destroy & Trial) **Acid-tongued Federation officials keeping a beady eye on Servalan for the President. Presumably killed in Blake's lightning attack on Servalan's HQ. Amusing double act by  **Peter Miles and John Bryans.**

 **THARNIA (Trial)** Travis' defence lawyer. She is conspiring with Servalan to get him condemned, but her opening defence statement is convincing enough to rouse Travis to violent protest. **Victoria Fairbrother** , lean as a yard of pump-water, makes a striking figure.

 **TROOPER PAR (Trial)** The only person who ever manifests a soft spot for Travis. He smuggles liquor to him in prison, and cannot quite bring himself to pull the trigger when his ex-commander escapes.  **Kevin Lloyd**  gives a convincing and sympathetic portrait of a man who's only home is the army ( _"I'm a 20-year man, I wouldn't recognize freedom if I fell over it"_ ).

 **TYNUS (Killer)** Slimy ex-accomplice whom Avon blackmails into helping steal TP crystals for deciphering the latest Federation code system. Attempts to betray him to Servalan, the fool.  **Ronald Lacy.**

 **DR. BELLFRIAR (Killer)** Affable virologist who, with Blake's help, identifies the space plague and suggests a cure for it, alas, too late to save himself.  **Paul Daneman**  makes him very likable.

 **GAMBRILL (Killer)** Bellfriar's assistant, who would rather not meet a hostile exomorph. He is pardonably sceptical when Blake tells him he teleported into the base ( _"You said this base was full of psychotics, wait till you hear this one"_ ).  **Colin Farrell.**

 **DR WILER (Killer)** The pathologist who performs the autopsy on Wardin's corpse, which is interrupted when it comes to life and breaks his neck. A rather amusing cameo by **Morris Barry**  of an investigator who will not be hurried.

 **INGA (Hostage)** Blake's cousin, the hostage of the title.  **Judy Buxton**  puts as much spirit as she can into the conventional role of female captive.

 **USHTON (Hostage)** Inga's father. Forced to betray Blake's rescue attempt to Travis, he later seizes his opportunity distract the crimos and kill them, saving Blake's bacon.  **John Abineri**  has a good innings as a wily and formidable guerrilla fighter.

 **MOLOK (Hostage)** Chief of Travis's crimos (criminal psychopaths) who teleports aboard  _Liberator_  using the captured Vila's bracelet to seize the ship for Travis. Cally and Jenna use a neat trick to teleport him into empty space, almost too good a fate for such a monster.  **James Coyle**  gives him a spinechilling personality.

 **PROVINE (Countdown)** Federation major who orders the radiation bomb to be triggered during the Albian rebellion. Blake gets some vital information on the whereabouts of Star One from him as he lies dying. A coldly narrow-eyed performance from **Paul Shelley.**

 **DEL GRANT (Countdown)** The mercenary hired by the Albian insurgents to direct their attack on Federation Control. He accuses Avon of abandoning his sister Anna Grant to the mercies of Federation torturers and swears to kill him, so naturally they end up trying to defuse the bomb together.  **Tom Chadbon**  is naturally pugnacious.

 **VEN GLYND (Voice from the Past)** The Arbiter General from the first episode (different actor) who has defected to the opposition with evidence of corruption. However, his motives are less than pure and he is controlling Blake with an artificial telepathy device (manufactured on Auron) which triggers previously implanted hypnotic suggestions. He intends to play eminence grise to Blake's puppet leader, but he falls foul of Travis's trap.  **Richard Bebb**  is convincingly crafty.

 **GOVERNOR LE GRAND (Voice from the Past)** Idealistic governor of Outer Gall who wants to use the annual governor's meeting to overthrow the corrupt Terran administration and install Blake as President. Servalan heartily loathes her and plots her undoing. Wide-eyed optimism by  **Frieda Knorr.**

 **DOCHOLEE (Gambit)** Fugitive neural surgeon who has information on the location of Star One control centre, now drinking himself into oblivion in Chenie's bar. A grizzled and weary performance from  **Denis Carey.**

 **KRANTOR (Gambit)** High camp proprietor of the Big Wheel casino who engages to deliver Docholee and Travis into Servalan's hands, not realising that she has laid a trap for him too. Further misfortune follows when Avon and Vila take the casino for ten million credits, using Orac to work out the moves.  **Aubrey Woods**  makes him hilariously horrid.

 **TOISE (Gambit)** Krantor's equally campy lieutenant, given to flamboyant headgear.  **John Leeson**  pouts petulantly.

 **CEVEDIC (Gambit)** Krantor's hired killer or rubbish collector, as he styles himself. Makes the mistake of underestimating Travis (who went to a better school). Soft-voiced menace from **Paul Grist.**

 **CHENIE (Gambit)** Blond bar proprietress with regulation soft heart, who shelters Docholee from Cevedic. Maternal warmheartedness from **Nicholette Roeg.**

 **THE KLUTE (Gambit)** Speed Chess expert at the Big Wheel whose reward when he wins is to press the button on the electric chair his opponent sits in. Undefeated until the cheating trio of Avon, Vila and Orac passes his way. Heavy-lidded malevolence from **Deep Roy.**

 **JARRIERE (Gambit)** Servalan's very Irish-sounding new lieutenant, to whom she can explain the intricacies of her plans to trap and destroy pretty well everyone she can think of in one go. Travis rudely calls him a powder puff. Rather engaging performance from  **Harry Jones.**

 **GOLA, Charl of the Goths (The Keeper)** Crude tribal leader who might have vital information on Star One's whereabouts. He and his brother Rod ( **Shaun Curry** ) deposed their father, then turned on each other. He falls victim to Jenna's charms and his sister's vengeance.  **Bruce Purchase**  enjoys his antics.

 **TARA (The Keeper)** Seeress and elder sister of Gola and Rod, who manoeuvres a duel to the death between them and makes sure neither party survives by poisoning the winner. Last seen chortling merrily on the throne.  **Freda Jackson**  gleefully brings her immense authority to the part.

 **FOOL (The Keeper)** He has the unenviable task of keeping Gola entertained. Jealous of Vila's success, he gets him flung into the dungeons by a trick. He doesn't know it, but Lurgan has implanted the secret location of Star One in his mind.  **Cengiz Saner.**

 **STOT (Star One)** Chief of Star One's volunteer personnel. He turns out to be a shape-shifting Andromedan alien masquerading as Stot who's task is to sabotage Star One's systems, causing chaos in the Federation and neutralising part of the defence minefields. He tries to persuade Lurena, the only scientist to escape assimilation, that she is going mad.  **David Webb**  makes him a rather pompous figure.

 **LURENA (Star One)** Star One technician. Realises what is afoot when she finds the bodies of her colleagues hung up in a cloakroom, while outside they are still walking around trying to kill her. Turns herself into a walking bomb to finish them off.  **Jenny Twigge**  brings intensity to the part.

 **HAL MELLANBY (Aftermath)** Weaponry designer who fled from the Federation after involvement in a failed rebellion. Now living in exile with his young daughter Dayna in a submerged space station on Saron, he shelters Avon and Servalan after the Galactic War. She recognises him.  **Cy Grant**  makes him a dignified and commanding figure.

 **CHEL (Aftermath)** Bloodthirsty chieftain of the Sarons, whose favourite sport is hunting fugitives across the dunes. Avon nearly gets his throat cut and Servalan is strung up to a frame. Left cursing on the beach as Avon and Dayna teleport back to  _Liberator_. Plenty of rough vigour from  **Alan Lake.**

 **LAUREN (Aftermath)** Mellanby's adopted daughter and life-long companion of Dayna. In her zeal to protect them, she stays out alone to watch for another Saron attempt to break the door down and falls into Chel's hands.  **Sally Harrison.**

 **KLEGG (Powerplay)** Leader of the death squad who board the empty  _Liberator_  after the galactic war, only to find they cannot get Zen to take any notice of them. Tries to force Avon to hand over control when he returns, but gets his neck broken by Dayna.  **Michael Sheard**  gives a grim portrayal of an embittered NCO.

 **NURSE (Powerplay)** Sugar-sweet angel of mercy aboard the Chengan hospital ship that picks up Cally and Servalan after the battle. Apparently sympathetic to Cally, she brushes off Servalan's attempt to exert authority, but she's hiding a nasty secret from her patients.  **Catherine Chase**.

 **LOM (Powerplay)** Chengan `primitive' who tries to save Vila from the hunters but is himself struck down by a drug dart. Fortunately his companion  **Nol** ( **Michael Crane** ) gets him to safety. As played by **John Hollis** , he is kindly and by no means unsophisticated.

 **ZEE and BAR (Powerplay)** Bounty hunters keeping the supplies coming for the Chengan organ bank, who con Vila into thinking their intentions are kindly. **Primi Townsend and Julia Vidler**  twinkle merrily over their deception.

 **HOWER (Volcano)** Leader of the Pyroans of Obsidian and one-time friend of Hal Mellanby. He executes his disobedient son and hits the global destruct button when Servalan attacks.  **Michael Gough**  excels in patriarchal sternness.

 **BERSHAR (Volcano)** Son of "first citizen" Hower. Insufficiently indoctrinated for the quiet life, he chafes at being a "peace puppet" and makes a deal with Servalan to capture the  _Liberator_  then pays the price when his father finds out. One cannot help a sneaking sympathy for **Malcolm Bullivant's**  disaffected young man.

 **MORI (Volcano)** Servalan's Supreme Commander designate. He boards  _Liberator_  by a trick but is so absorbed by Avon's guided tour that he doesn't notice Zen being given some crucial orders until it is too late. He comes to a nasty end (well, somebody had to fall into that volcano).  **Ben Howard.**

 **THE THAARN (Dawn of the Gods)** The demon figure of Cally's childhood come to life. In honeyed tones he tries to persuade her to be his consort and rule the galaxy with him after he has subdued it with his gravity machine.  **Marcus Powell.**

 **THE CALIPH (Dawn of the Gods)** The Thaarn's chief executive. A dandyish figure in his curly-brimmed topper, sporting a walking cane containing some unpleasant weaponry, his jovial manner masks a ruthless nature. Tarrant and Dayna bear the brunt of his interrogation, but manage to hide Orac's true nature from his lie detector.  **Sam Dastor**  plays the part with gusto.

 **GROFF (Dawn of the Gods)** Once a crew member of a Zatanar survey ship, he is now the Thaarn's chief designer. When Tarrant and Avon are put to work in his department, he aids their escape by putting the gravity field into reverse.  **Terry Scully**  plays a sad exile.

 **JARVIK (The Harvest of Kairos)** Tarrant's one-time commander from his Federation days, who captures the  _Liberator_  for Servalan. The only man to throw Servalan around and get away with a whole skin ( _"That disgusting and degrading act to which I was subjected in the control room ... I should like you to do it again"_ ). A macho but humorous performance from  **Andrew Burt.**

 **BAYBAN THE BERSERKER (The City at the Edge of the World)** A raider. He was working his way up the Federation's `Most Wanted' list before Blake crept out of his creche, but then, he did have the encouragement of his mother  _"wonderful woman, truly evil person"_. Vila kowtows respectfully before **Colin Baker's**  handsome young maniac.

 **NORL (The City at the Edge of the World)** Priestly leader of the apparently passive inhabitants of Kezarn, who is manipulating Bayban to find a cracksman to open the door  _`to this world and the next' <_.  **Valentine Dyall's**  magnificent saturnine presence rivets the attention even when the famous bass voice is silent. (That same voice is used for the recorded message Vila and Kerrill hear aboard the starship.)

 **KERRILL (The City at the Edge of the World)** Bayban's best gunfighter. Upset by Vila's criticism of her personal hygiene, she goes off for a bath and change before accompanying him through the secret door. Believing that they are trapped on the starship with the air running out, she proposes to pass the time agreeably. Vila doesn't say no.  **Carol Hawkins.**

 **SHERM (The City at the Edge of the World)** Not Bayban's best gunfighter.  _"You stupid son of a slime-crawler"_  rails Bayban when something goes wrong yet again. The poor man cannot cope with events, blind loyalty must be his only asset.  **John J. Carney.**

 **CLINICIAN FRANTON (The Children of Auron)** Head of the bio-replication unit where Servalan proposed to clone herself in exchange for `medical aid' to overcome the plague she herself started. A sympathetic lady, helpful to Cally and her twin Zelda, she is dedicated to her career and ends up holding 5,000 babies. **Sarah Atkinson.**

 **GINKA (The Children of Auron)** Plotting subordinate, resentful of being passed over for promotion. He thinks he can manipulate Servalan and live to tell the tale.  **Ric Young**  projects a character any superior officer would love to murder.

 **SHRINKER (Rumours of Death)** Federation torturer. Burly and self-assured when he introduces himself to a captive Avon in his cell, cringing and exculpatory when the tables are turned and he is called to account for Anna's death. Under Avon's merciless interrogation he shows some flashes of professional pride  _"There wasn't one that died without telling me what I wanted to know"_  he says, but he does manage to convince him that he never saw Anna. Unmoved by his pleas, Avon metes out justice ( _"just and sweet"_ ).  **John Bryans**  is nastily convincing in a role that this modern world is all too familiar with.

 **SULA/ANNA GRANT (Rumours of Death)** The lady with the multiple personalities who so fascinated Avon, he was prepared to endure five days of Federation `interrogation' to find her supposed murderer. Soignee and smiling as the Anna of his dreams; dark and shadowy as Bartolomew, the Federation's top secret agent stalking his movements like a cat; sarcastic and efficient as Sula, wife of High Councillor Chesku, plotting to overthrow Servalan. In their final confrontation, she tries to convince Avon of her continuing love, but fails.  **Lorna Heilbronn.**

 **COUNCILLOR CHESKU (Rumours of Death)** First seen rehearsing a sycophantic speech for Servalan's reception, the Councillor does not elicit much sympathy from his wife or the audience, but her ruthless betrayal of this wretched dupe evokes a certain commiseration.  **Peter Clay.**

 **INTRUDER (Sarcophagus)** The apparently dead alien who regenerates herself by linking telepathically with Cally and using her powers to seize  _Liberator_  and enslave the crew as her  _"intelligent menials"_.  **Jan Chappell**  makes the most of the opportunity to display the fireworks (literally!) normally denied to the level-tempered Cally.

 **PRIESTESS IN BLACK (Sarcophagus)** She conducts the last rites for her deceased mistress in an eerie occult ceremony, climaxing with the evocation of visions of masked figures who will play their part in her reincarnation. The  **uncredited actress**  in this mute role is far more striking with her balletic gestures than the average walk-on.

 **THE ULTRAS (Ultraworld)** Three blue-skinned shaven-headed executives who manage Ultraworld, the artificial planet-cum-computer with a giant living brain which constantly requires human sacrifice. Their smooth lies trap Cally and Avon, but when they propose that Dayna and Tarrant should satisfy their curiosity about the `human bonding ceremony', unaware of the lady's habit of keeping explosives on her person, the result is messy.  **Peter Richards, Stephen Jenn and Ian Barritt.**

 **RELF (Ultraworld)** His mind is encapsulated in a glass jar but his body is being used as a zombie/menial by the Ultras. Tarrant gets some vital information from the glass jar, Avon gets zapped by the body.  **Ronald Govey.**

 **GROSE (Moloch)** Renegade warrant officer of the Fifth Legion, famous for its brutality.  _"It isn't the information as such,"_  he tells Avon as his men work him over  _"but the fun of extracting it."_  He means to use the Sardoan matter transformers to replicate a battle fleet and Servalan's flagship will do nicely as a pattern. Jovial sadism from **John Hartley.**

 **DORAN (Moloch)** Convict from Calchos penal colony recruited by Grose for his army. Seldom sober, he takes a liking to Vila, who is masquerading as a colleague, and brings him a woman ... Servalan.  **Davyd Harries**  portrays a rather likable sentimental oaf with glimpses of something nastier.

 **MOLOCH (Moloch)** Unwisely created by Colonel Astrid who fed a computer projection of two million years of human evolution into a Sardoan matter transformer, the result is a malignant mannikin sitting inside a computer. Grose has lured Servalan to Sardos in order to copy her flagship, but Moloch is using Servalan to lure Avon to Sardos to seize the  _Liberator_.  **Deep Roy**  makes his third appearance in Blake's 7 (well, part of him does).

 **DEETA (Death-Watch)** First Champion of Teal and Tarrant's elder brother. Far more serious and reflective than Del, he is a professional gladiator, scenting something strange about his opponent yet not taking advantage of his turned back, fatally chivalrous as it turns out.  **Steven Pacey**  portrays a private man of considerable depth.

 **MAX (Death-Watch)** Kind-hearted diplomat fussing over Deeta while he waits for the combat to begin, anxiously enquiring after his health every few minutes. **Stewart Bevan.**

 **VINNI (Death-Watch)** First Champion of the Vandor Confederation who kills Deeta Tarrant. Unknown to himself, he is an android, part of Servalan's plot to start an all-out war and annexe both planets for the Federation.  **Mark Elliot**  makes him an obnoxious yuppie.

 **COMMENTATOR (Death-Watch)** A caricature of a well-known type, preparing the viewers for the coming combat. His bitchy exchanges with his unseen (and uncredited) programme controller leaven the first part of the episode.  **David Sibley.**

 **KOSTOS (Terminal)** Servalan's henchwoman on Terminal. Dressed in surgical whites, her enjoyment is evident as she administers the hallucinatory treatment that causes Avon to believe he has seen Blake. Snapping her fingers to direct her underlings, she struts arrogantly to her fate aboard the disintegrating  _Liberator_. **Gillian McCutcheon.**

 **DORIAN (Rescue)** In this paraphrase of Wilde's `Picture of Dorian Gray', the portrait in the attic is replaced by a saurian creature in the basement which cleanses Dorian of "time and appetite" and keeps him young indefinitely. His vices have so accumulated over two centuries that it is no longer enough to feed the creature with one victim at a time, he needs a closely-knit group to form a gestalt.  **Geoffrey Burridge**  progresses convincingly from glib and grubby salvage operator to repellent degenerate, _"mad, bad and dangerous to know"._

 **GUNN-SAR (Power)** Chieftain  _"by right of combat"_  of the Hommiks of Xenon. Somewhat simple-minded, he relies on the support of his counsellor and his wife and when neither is present, he loses a fight with Dayna who has the covert telekinetic aid of two Seska. This ruins the orderly male succession.  **Dicken Ashworth.**

 **PELLA (Power)** Leader of the Seska remnant. Locked in a battle she cannot win, she decides to use Avon and Vila, under the pretence of helping them with her telekinetic powers, to gain access to  _Scorpio_  and abandon Xenon forever.  **Juliet Hammond Hill**  portrays a bitter man-hater, ready to kill anyone who stands in her way.

 **NINA (Power)** Wife of Gunn-Sar and once a Seska leader. A mature and loving person, she will lead the bereft Hommiks away from their barren warrior cult towards a normal society. **Jenny Oulton.**

 **LEITZ (Traitor)** The eponymous traitor. Commissioner Sleer's aide de camp who is directing the rebels into ambush under the guise of friendship. Overreaches himself when he attempts to blackmail Sleer into making him President of Helotrix by threatening to reveal that she is really the deposed Servalan. She smiles sweetly and disposes of him on the spot.  **Malcolm Stoddard**  plays a sleek self-satisfied rat.

 **COLONEL QUUTE (Traitor)** A Federation "pacifier" who, with his black eyepatch bears a passing resemblance to Travis. Enjoys his job.  **Christopher Neame.**

 **HUNDA (Traitor)** Leader of the Helot underground. He plans to tunnel under the Magnetrix Terminal and blow it up, but Leitz persuades him there is an easier way.  **Robert Morris.**

 **FORBUS (Traitor)** Discoverer of the pacification drug Pylene-50. Sleer has forced him to manufacture it for her by administering a poison and doling out the antidote somewhat irregularly to keep him in line. He plans a `bombe surprise' for her next visit and is happy to supply Dayna and Tarrant with the antidote to Pylene-50. He also alerts them to Leitz's treachery.  **Edgar Wreford.**

 **DR. PLAXTON (Star Drive)** Once the Federation's chief space drive designer, begetter of the Photon Drive. She has ventured into the Space Rat's den and between the vicious Atlan and Avon at his most ruthless, she stands little chance. Lovely **Barbara Shelley** , queen of the horror movies, plays against type as a harassed but stubborn scientist.

 **ATLAN (Star Drive)** Leader of the Space Rats, although not really one of them. Whereas his followers exist only for  _"sex and violence, booze and speed"_ , Atlan wants to use the Photon Drive for conquest (what else?). A psychopath's psychopath played with eye-rolling relish by  **Damien Thomas.**

 **JUSTIN (Animals)** A geneticist. Once Dayna's much-loved tutor, the questionable ethics of his current experiments (engineering a crossbred creature who can work in areas of high radiation) horrify her.  **Peter Byrne**  (also playing against type) portrays a precariously balanced, over-brighteyed man whose loneliness has blurred the distinction between right and wrong.

 **ARDUS (Animals)** Blind ex-Intelligence officer whom Sleer drags out of retirement to extract information about Justin's research programme. His memory also stretches back to the sound of the ex-President's voice, so she arranges an accident for him.  **Kevin Stoney's**  splendidly seamed face is always worth watching.

 **VENA (Headhunter)** Ladyfriend of the cyberneticist Muller, who has come to Xenon base to arrange his defection from the rather sinister cartel he is working for. Alas, she is killed by the robot as it searches for Orac.  **Linda Bellingham**  portrays a mature comfortable personality, so much to Vila's taste, that Avon packs him off in  _Scorpio_  to get him out of the way.

 **MULLER'S ROBOT (Headhunter)** The creation of Ensor's pupil, a walking Orac. Realising that restraint should be exercised on such a powerful machine, Muller had prepared a head containing strong inhibitory circuits, but the robot pre-empts him by killing him and taking his own head to masquerade as Muller while it searches for Orac in order to unite with him and enslave all organic life. Although a terrifying threat, it is rather naive in its dealings with humans, and succumbs to trickery. Dayna destroys it with an explosive charge, to Avon's fury.  **John Westbrook**  plays the whole robot and  **Nick Joseph**  the headless one.

 **BENOS (Assassin)** Domo pirate/slave trader who thinks he has captured a great prize when he lays his hands on Avon. Not his day really.  **Peter Attad.**

 **NEBROX (Assassin)** Quick-witted elderly slave who retrieves Avon's teleport bracelet from Benos. Unfortunately, he is perceived as a danger by the assassin and promptly terminated. **Richard Hurndall.**

 **VERLIS (Assassin)** Queen of the slave traders of Domo. Dressed up like Cleopatra, she presides over the slave auction where Avon is sold to an eager Servalan ( _"You'll have to bid for him like everyone else"_ ), and nearly swallows her cocktail stick when the merchandise teleports away.  **Betty Marsden**  is clearly having fun.

 **CANCER (Assassin)** This black-clad killer with a very sinister beard is not what he seems, although  **John Wyman**  certainly looks the part.

 **PIRI (Assassin)** When Avon and Tarrant discover her aboard Cancer's spacecraft, she seems to be a victim of circumstances. Her little girl act arouses protective instincts in Tarrant and Nebrox but grates horribly on the less sympathetic Soolin and Avon. She eventually reveals herself as the real Cancer, transforming into a gloating assassin as she moves in for the kill, assuring her victim that it is an agonising death. However, Soolin evades her first try and turns the tables by knocking the venomous spider off Avon and onto its mistress.  **Caroline Holdaway.**

 **BELKOV (Games)** Mining engineer on Mecron who has been diverting priceless feldon crystals into his own coffers, which are guarded by his highly idiosyncratic computer `Gambit'. Having crossed a standard machine with a pleasure planet gaming computer, his security system poses severe problems to interlopers.  **Stratford Johns**  gleefully presents a mischievous rogue, revelling in his own trickery.

 **GAMBIT (Games)** Belkov's computer, _"his bodyguard, his companion, his playmate - his friend"._  Orac is positively shocked by its almost human personality, _"That implies an emotional tie which is no part of a computer's function"_. Belkov has endowed it with a feminine voice ( **Rosalind Bailey** ) and quirky personality to match his own, but it has acquired another human trait, resentment, and when he orders it to begin the self-destruct sequence as he flees, it betrays him.

 **GERREN (Games)** _"Greedy, avaricious and a crook"_  says Avon rather admiringly of his current ally. He wants the crew to help him relieve Belkov of his stash, but he is no match that games player and he has the further misfortune to fall foul of Servalan in a particularly merciless mood.  **David Neal.**

 **REEVE (Sand)** Federation investigator who accompanies Servalan to Virn to discover what happened to Keller's expedition five years ago. Arrogant and ambitious, he reveals that he knows her real identity when she brushes off his lecherous overtures. She is spared the necessity of murdering him when he loses a shootout with Tarrant.  **Stephen Yardley.**

 **KEILLER (Gold)** Crooked purser of the pleasure cruiser Space Princess. He informs his "old friend" Avon that this merely a cover for transporting gold incognito and proposes that they should steal it. In fact, Servalan is using him for her own purposes.  **Roy Kinnear**  is a past master at portraying sly rogues.

 **EGRORIAN (Orbit)** A mad scientist. A giggling psychopath who torments his frail assistant, he plots with Servalan to acquire Orac in exchange for his invention the Tachyon Funnel, the ultimate death ray. He then sabotages the shuttle Avon and Vila are travelling in, calculating that the Tachyon Funnel will survive the impact. An enjoyably over-the-top performance from  **John Savident.**

 **PINDER (Orbit)** Once a  _"golden-haired stripling"_ , the mathematical prodigy who fled from the Federation with Egrorian was exposed to Hoffal's radiation and aged 50 years. Now he is the object of contempt and violence, but he takes the opportunity to turn the tables.  **Larry Noble**

 **ZUKAN (Warlord)** Warlord of Betafarl. He joins the anti-Federation league organised by Avon to manufacture and distribute the Pylene 50 antidote, and resist the "pacification programme". However, he is already conspiring with Servalan to ambush Avon and destroy the Xenon base.  **Roy Boyd**  plays him as a latter-day samurai with a rigid, but cracked psyche.

 **ZEEONA (Warlord)** Daughter of the warlord Zukan, who secretly comes to Xenon base to be with Tarrant and falls foul of her father's double-cross. Surprisingly Soolin connives at her deception and Dayna shows no jealousy. However, she doesn't survive long enough to join the crew on their final trip to Hell. **Bobbie Brown.**

 **ARLEN (Blake)** Gauda Prime outlaw who is captured by Blake in his persona as bounty hunter. A savage fighter, she passes the test and is recruited to his cause, with fatal results.  **Sasha Mitchell**  gives her a vindictive personality.

 **DEVA (Blake)** Co-ordinator and supervisor of Gauda Prime's bounty hunters and Blake's secret confederate. He is justifiably anxious about Blake's risky methods of recruitment.  **David Collings.**


	4. Part 4

#### THE SPACECRAFT

**_LIBERATOR_  AND ITS ORIGIN **  
No kind of resistance could possibly have been initiated without the  _Liberator_. Built by `The System', Deep Space Vehicle 2 is a huge battle cruiser of far greater sophistication than anything the Federation possesses. It contains an auto-repair system which restores it to normal after damage, thus when it is found adrift and abandoned, it is apparently in fully working order. The ship is powered by energy banks, recharged by the belt of solar panels around the fuselage. Problems arise for the crew when harassment by relays of Federation pursuit ships prevent them from going into a suitable solar orbit for this purpose.

 _Liberator_  is a very handsome craft. Unmistakably a warship, the central fuselage with its slender nose and glowing bulbous stern, the three huge engine pods on their pylons, each bristling with javelin- shaped weaponry, give an instant impression of the awesome power of the advanced civilization that created it. This civilization, however, proves to be as totalitarian as the Federation. Having achieved local domination with their immense technological prowess, they are building these vehicles to expand their empire. Their attempt to repossess  _DSV-2_  proves fatal because Orac destroys  _DSV-1_  and their all-powerful central computer (possibly by infesting it with a plague of viruses) and eliminates their potential challenge for the foreseeable future, thus liberating the  _Liberator_  from their influence.

We never learn the identity of the contestants in the battle witnessed by  _London_ 's crew. Both sides seem evenly matched, was this civil war? Why is such an advanced civilisation unknown to the Federation? Perhaps they have concealed themselves, fearing that their technical superiority does not sufficiently compensate for their numerical inferiority (only three planets according to the slave worker in  **Redemption** ). If only two DSVs now exist, it indicates that they do not yet have the capacity to build a whole fleet quickly. If the battle was a civil war, then other DSVs may have been destroyed (as suggested by the explosion which battered the  _London_  in  **Space Fall** ), setting back their expansion plans and forcing them to move by stealth. It is thus worth their while to spend a year or more searching for the  _Liberator_  to prevent it falling into the hands of the Federation, whose presence in the galaxy must be known to them. Zen has acquired a great deal of information about Federation territory before the advent of Orac, so the System has probably surreptitiously tapped into Federation databanks besides conducting its own exploration.

 ** _SCORPIO_  **  
 _"Lift, you scruffy bag of bolts, lift!"_ mutters Tarrant on his first take-off. Dorian's battered planet hopper, although it contains some interesting and non-standard equipment, is a big come-down after  _Liberator_. No more comfortable cabins or inexhaustible supplies of energy and food, from now on, the crew have to scavenge for necessities and slip furtively home to their base on Xenon. Navigation and control systems are likely to go phft! at critical moments ( **Spacedrive** ), force walls are shaky and the teleport may not pick up everybody at its first try ( **Power** ).

* * *

#### THE COMPUTERS

**ZEN**  
The  _Liberator_ 's master computer, controller of the battle and navigation computers, the engines and weaponry, and the life support system. Zen's responsibility is to the ship itself, rather than the crew, which enables it to refuse to answer questions and ignore commands if they conflict with this mandate.

First contact is made with Zen when Jenna places her hand on a sensory pad during an exploratory session and establishes some sort of telepathic communication with it. Zen accepts her as the ship's pilot and opens a vocal channel to the others in the lofty tones of a senior civil servant. Zen's independence is sometimes dangerous, it disrupts the teleport, marooning Blake and Jenna aboard an alien craft and refuses to admit the craft to  _Liberator_ 's hold, although it does not prevent Avon from performing this task manually ( **Time Squad** ). When the crew venture into forbidden territory (as defined by the ship's original owners) it shuts down completely, taking all the other computers with it, thus creating a dangerous systems instability. Avon manages to override it and restore partial service at a crucial moment. Given this amount of free will, its inability to circumvent Cally's sabotage because interference with crew activities before any damage is actually done is forbidden, is a little strange.

Casting: A dispassionate upper-class voice synchronised with flashing lights ( _"Your species requires a visual reference point"_ ) gives Zen a remote, austere personality. Very well done.

 **ORAC**  
 _"Is it a computer?"_  asks Cally.  _"It most certainly is not! It is a brain, a genius,"_  replies its inventor, Ensor.  _"That was its creator's vanity,"_  maintains Avon, _"Orac is a computer"._

Easily the most sophisticated artificial intelligence in the universe, Orac is a handful. It has absorbed the irascible characteristics of its creator, who designed it to gather information from other computers which incorporate the `Tarial Cell' invented by Ensor in his youth, process these findings and make predictions. Orac is also capable of using its carrier waves to operate or interfere with other computers and equipment such as  _Liberator_ 's teleport and DSV-1's weaponry system.

Orac shows little concern for the safety of  _Liberator_  and its crew, whom it tends to regard with scorn ( _"I have noticed that the occupants of this spacecraft have a lamentable lack of interest in the more fascinating aspects of the universe"_ ). However, it seems to have acquired its creator's vanity, which is neatly manipulated by Avon when he persuades Orac to miniaturise itself by feigning disbelief that it could actually be done (reminiscent of Wotan and Loge tricking Alberich into transforming himself into a toad in order to capture him - Das Rheingold).

Casting: As a complete contrast to Zen, a snappish voice (though equally upper-caste) usually manifesting scorn and impatience. A very successful characterisation by the same actor.

 **SLAVE**  
 _Scorpio_ 's flight computer, built by Dorian who likes his computers servile. Slave spends a lot of his time in grovelling apologies which makes him dangerously slow in reporting the approach of danger.

Casting: Peter Tuddenham produces a suitably oily voice for this mechanical Uriah Heep.

* * *

#### THE PRODUCTION

**COSTUME DESIGN**  
Standard Federation civilian costume consists of a shirt and tabard over trousers or skirt, permitting very little individuality and emphasizing the drab uniformity of the state.

Among  _Liberator_ 's facilities is an extensive wardrobe, which is somewhat strange, considering the regimented appearance of their original owners ( **Redemption** ), the crew can therefore make whatever use they like of the contents. Colour generally acts as a guide to personality. Blake is usually peasant-like in Sherwood Forest greens and browns; Cally also favours green when on active service, although she appears in some more colourful clothes occasionally. Jenna is more decorative, usually in glittering fabric top over plainer trousers or colourful long dress, frequently strong red or purple shades. Soolin, apparently uninterested in fashion, rarely ventures away from grey, but expresses her individuality with a different hairstyle each episode. Avon is generally seen in aristocratic black and silver, with an occasional diversion into red leather; Vila is usually nondescript with tracksuit variations, but in several early episodes he wears a motley jacket of coloured patches as befits the jester's role that he so often assumes for self-protection; Gan's huge frame looks best in the Renaissance outfit of his last episodes. The dashing Tarrant is often dressed for a Hollywood swashbuckler and Dayna's youthful charms are often emphasized in daring plunges.

Travis-1 wears black leather of a similar design to his mutoids, in keeping with his dour brutality, whereas Travis-2 wears a more nondescript textured cloth, rather suggestive of crocodile skin. Servalan's spectacular charms are mostly displayed in floor-length satin and cleavage, she sometimes changes into slightly more practical gear for her nefarious field trips ( **Orac, Pressure Point** ) but frequently braves the cold in low-cut dresses ( **Moloch, Sand** )  _"I have a robust constitution,"_  she assures an underling in  **Assassin**. Let us not forget that flamboyant red dress in  **Gambit** , her only venture into colour apart from the lavender dress she borrowed from Dayna in  **Aftermath** , otherwise she wears white for most of the first two series, changing to black in the third series.

Green seems to be a key colour, representing hope and purity. Blake and Cally, the most idealistic members of the crew, often wear it. Travis cloaks himself in green when masquerading as Shevan the rebel leader in  **Voice from the Past**. When, in later episodes, Avon is seen in green, it is the olive/khaki shades of camouflage suited to a pragmatic and cautious leader. Its most notable appearance is on Kezarn ( **The City at the Edge of the World** ) whose peaceable inhabitants all wear a pale spring green. Bayban's gunfighter Kerrill, changes into the same colour before she accompanies Vila to the new world, symbolising her rejection of her previous life and presaging her decision to stay there with Norl and his followers. The colours used to differentiate between the masked figures in the prophecy at the beginning of  **Sarcophagus**  reappear subtly in the clothing worn by the crew, assigning them their roles in the occupant's destiny.

As with colour, cut is often an indicator of personality. Avon's tightly buttoned character is usually symbolised by high collars, he looks oddly unfamiliar in an open-necked outfit in  **Warlord** , barefoot and unshaven in prison overalls ( **Rumours of Death** ), the transformation is very marked. The usually unzipped Blake and Gan are clearly much more relaxed and trusting people. Cally is another high collared individual, not for her the confident decolleté of Jenna and Dayna, restraint is one of her leading characteristics. Servalan occasionally sports a high collar, but her costumes generally plunge at front and back about as far as they can go, like their wearer.

Blake's spacesuit in  **Voice from the Past**  looks dreadful. Things have much improved when Vila has to go outside in  **Dawn of the Gods**. Footwear is mainly knee-length boots for both sexes, Avon and Vila often have tools concealed in theirs, Dayna once produces a grenade from hers ( **Volcano** ).

Although their uniform looks suitably sinister, the Federation guards cannot be comfortable in those helmets and face masks, nor do the inhabitants of Fosforon look at ease in stiff plastic capes like turtle carapaces. The mutoid ladies fare better in sensible uniforms and flowerpot headgear, some of them manage to look pretty and stylish. Geela and Novara wear strange silvery overalls, whose peeling outer surface suggests a snake sloughing its skin.

Bayban and his troop wear Hell's Angel black leather with metal studs (by the time he gets to Terminal, Avon appears to have acquired Bayban's particularly brutal gauntlets). The Terra Nostra at the smoother end of the criminal scale, are elegant in close-fitting high-collared brown velvet.

Other good designs: The  _Ortega_  crew's overalls, each in a different colour; Meegat's pretty blue robes and Rashel's elegant black (even with that high collar); Alta1 and Alta2's skin-tight blue leotards. On a prison planet devoid of facilities, Kara reveals a very expensive-looking silk gown when she doffs the monk's habit ( **Cygnus Alpha** ).

 **SET DESIGN**  
 _"The style is Early Maniac"_  says Vila, who has a sharp eye. Many interiors ignore the basic principles of convenience and practical usage. The  _Liberator_  has too many corridors with slippery floors. Although its honeycomb appearance is interesting, the interior does not seem to match up with the exterior. Shouldn't the crew seats have some safety harness? They often seem to need them.

External sets are generally mundane. Industrial premises are pressed into service, some spectacular ( **Redemption** ), some rather charmingly decayed ( **Weapon** ). Quarries are the great standby for the countryside; the BBC's favourite chalkpit, pleasantly overgrown with buddleia bushes ( **Deliverance** ), gravel ( **Time Squad** ) or sand ( **Shadow** ). Add a few stock shots and some wave noises and hey presto! the seaside ( **Orac** ). The desolate flooded pits in  **Traitor**  lend a suitably sinister air to the proceedings. Mines ( **Orac** ) and caves ( **Project Avalon, Horizon, Rumours of Death** ) and woodlands ( **Duel, The Web** ) also make their appearance. **Star One**  is represented by Pennine limestones and the exteriors in  **City at the Edge of the World**  and  **Volcano**  also have a Derbyshire look to them (there are some ancient volcanics in the region). Most external scenes are shot in the wind, frost and snow of an English winter so very few planets have a lush look to them.

The gravemarkers in  **Duel** , humanoid figures raising their arms to the heavens in despair, are splendidly chilling. Sarkoff's Folly in  **Bounty**  is an amusing touch ( _"a typical late Twentieth Century dwelling, set in an authentic Earth garden"_ ), with its ludicrous silver-sprayed interior.

The spacecraft fare rather better. Externally,  _Liberator_  is a splendid creation. The interior of the cramped little craft carrying the genetic banks to another world is tellingly claustrophobic, full of menace. Various battered old freighters go about their business,  _Ortega_ ,  _London_ , etc., with shabby furnishings and horrible paint schemes. Servalan's flagship has a distinctly crocodilian look as it swallows the luckless patrol ship at the start of  **The Children of Auron**. In a class of its own is the Intruder's stately sarcophagus with its party decorations. It is rather reminiscent of Cinderella's pumpkin coach externally; a seed-pod about to burst, with catastrophic consequences.

 **STUNTS**  
As always, stunts are hampered by the need to keep the cast in good repair, and not to show the younger viewers exactly how to murder someone with their bare hands, thus rendering them generally unconvincing. Too many corpses roll downhill in the well-known stuntman's bounce, and the timing of some shootouts is decidedly lax, better editing might have helped here. Dummies plummeting down cliffs are never convincing. There is a spectacular high dive off a gallery by one of the guards in  **Redemption**.

 **MUSIC**  
The music generally utilises a small ensemble and has the merit of not being too electronic. The flavour varies from episode to episode although a few themes (Federation guards) recur.  _Liberator_ 's fanfare bears a strong resemblance to Wagner's Rheingold motif, undergoing similar transformations, inverting, extending or flattening into a minor distress call. When Vila returns to  _Liberator_  after parting with Kerrill ( **City at the Edge of the World** ) it warms into a consoling phrase.

There is a nice touch in  **Orac**  when Avon is roused from nausea to investigate Blake's delay by distant warning horn calls. A melancholy cello solo accompanies the death of Ensor jr. and references to Marriott ( **Deliverance** ), both victims of Servalan's plot to acquire Orac. A jumpy staccato in the piano's lower register refers to the prowling killer aboard the  _Ortega_  ( **Mission to Destiny** ). Hunting horns resound through the first part of Bounty. In  **Redemption**  a theme related to the Federation guards' music, but with a derisive jiggle, accompanies the procession of captive crew and guards led by Alta Two, pointing up her high-heeled oscillating locomotion. A muted, but optimistic march is associated with the Helot freedom fighters in  **Traitor**. The  _Space Princess_  and her dopey passengers ( **Gold** ) cruise along to the anodyne strains of a particularly effete ragtime.

When the alien artifact in  **Sarcophagus**  performs its pre-programmed function and self-destructs, an augmented fourth, the "diabolus in musicus", sounds on the strings above a growling bass; a subtly disconcerting effect. Some of the score's best moments are its most economical; the rattling snaredrum over quiet sustained chords in  **Death-Watch** , gradually crescendoing as the combatants prepare for battle (which is conducted in silence); the unaccompanied heart- thumping drumbeats in  **Terminal**  and  **Rescue**. The eerie sighing glissandos heard in Dorian's chamber of horrors probably originate from Bela Bartok's opera  **Bluebeard's Castle**  whose subject is also the opening of forbidden rooms (Georges Auric's music for Cocteau's  **Beauty and the Beast**  also uses this effect).

 **SPECIAL EFFECTS**  
Cut-price and riddled with mistakes. Forget them and concentrate on the drama.

 **DIALOGUE**  
The chief glory of the series. Each character, however lowly, is highly articulate and most of them have an advanced vocabulary requiring precise delivery. (Maybe we should except Sherm and Chel.) The language is pithy and economical; Blake's retort _"They murdered my past and gave me tranquilised dreams"_ conveys the monstrous nature of Federation control in one short sentence.

There is a splendid moment in  **Rumours of Death**  when Avon finds a battered and bruised Servalan chained to the cellar wall by Sula.  _"Have you murdered your way to the wall of an underground room?"_  he asks, almost dismayed, _"It's an old wall Avon,"_  she replies  _"it waits. I hope you don't die before you reach it."_ Moments later, he does.

 _"All sweet things have one thing in common"_  says Soolin,  _"a tendency to make you sick",_  and cloying sentimentality is shunned, the action being propelled along with brisk and not always good-natured banter ( _"What have I done to deserve this?"_  moans Vila, in a tight corner,  _"How long a list would you like?"_  snaps Avon, in equal discomfort). Irony is a favourite tool of the more critical characters (Vila: _"Good, terrific. I'm really looking forward to this; danger, excitement, sudden death; I can't wait."_ )

The general tone is hard-edged and unsparing. Neither side wastes time on excuses or hyperbole. Events are described concisely and schemes are unfolded with gleeful relish, especially by Servalan ( _"When the Federation finally cleans out this cesspit, I shall have that vulpine degenerate eviscerated with a small and very blunt knife"_ ). The final disastrous rendezvous is presaged by Vila's warning  _"Sooner or later, we're going to drop into one of these holes in the ground and never come out."_  and Avon's prophetic response  _"Sooner or later, everyone does that, Vila."_

* * *

#### FINAL REMARKS

More than a decade has gone by since Blake's 7 was shown in Britain. Viewers still remember it as being quite out of the ordinary and calls for a rerun are frequently heard. In the US, Canada and Australia it is generally running somewhere most of the time. The amount of comment on the Usenet news and the existence of an electronic mailing list bears testimony to its undiminished pulling power. The debate about its stark ending rages on, many alternative explanations of the final shoot-out are offered, along with scripts for a continuation. A large fan-fiction industry has sprung up, which is itself the subject of scholarly enquiry.

A great deal of thought goes into analysing the characters and their actions. What makes the series particularly unusual, is the way a character other than hero or villain becomes the pivotal point of the whole drama. The brooding and ambivalent Avon struck a chord with vast numbers of viewers and the amount of network time devoted to this character reflects this fascination, which was obviously felt by script writers as well. A combination of felicitous casting and excellent writing gives this series an unforgettable flavour.


End file.
